Retribution
by JMK758
Summary: More than 40 people witnessed the murder, but can Gibbs identify the killer? In the meantime, McGee's secret is revealed and the consequences will affect the entire team.
1. Death in ShangraLa

This is my twenty-sixth NCIS Mystery and the sixth of my Third Season. The list of stories got so extensive I moved it, with summaries, to my profile.  
>There are also numerous stand-alone and spin-off stories listed in my profile, which include excursions into the Mirror Universe and 3 decades into the future for NCIS' next generation..<br>The usual legal disclaimers apply. I don't own anyone except Rev. Siobhan (Sha-vawn) McGee, SSAs Melanie Kelman, Fred Higgins, Kevin Lamb and other original Agents on their respective teams.  
>This story takes place about two weeks after the events depicted in 'Exposed'.<br>Please Review.  
>Rating: T or NCis-17.<p>

Retribution  
>by JMK758<br>Chapter One  
>Death in Shangra-La<p>

The darkness of the poorly spelled 'Shangra-La' club, more bar than dance hall, suits the desired anonymity of its patrons. The nearly useless spotlights that illuminate eight inch circles upon the black dance floor are enhanced by candles at the black bar and one on each small round black table beyond the dance area, and they aid vision little more than the twinkling of distant stars beyond the black walls. The law dictates minimum ages of patrons, most particularly at four o'clock in the morning, but few present have lost the luster or manic enthusiasm of youth.

Unlined faces dominate the frenzied crowd that overfills the hardwood center of the cavernous chamber. Rotating beams of intense color reflected from mirrored balls stab eyes while shouting voices strain to penetrate the staggering discords battering the walls.

Two young women at a table edging the seething mass of bodies rely on gesture over the frenzied beats that batter their bodies and abuse their ears with merciless cacophony. They must depend upon lip reading and hope, and count themselves fortunate if they can, half of the time, rightly guess meaning.

The blonde's hair is as fulsome as her décolletage, which gives generous views below the loosely secured, backless gold lamé top with spaghetti-thin straps which fights a valiant battle for a pretense at modesty. The black pants cover her seemingly through the benefit of spray paint. The brunette's black half-dress covers her no more effectively, her upper three buttons having given up the battle, leaving her hopes of modesty dependant more upon darkness than clothing.

A tall man, coordination stolen by indulgence, staggers past the table, stops, turns and says something to the women. Rather he mouths it, as anything short of a bellow is beaten down within inches.

Frustrated at the lack of reaction, he reaches down, grabs the blonde's arm and pulls. She yanks back, he pulls harder and the brunette grasps his pinky, tugs hard and the grip is broken with a yell that's almost audible.

The young man topples backward to the floor, thin face lost in a mop of straggly brown hair. The blonde woman is gone in a moment, her more-than-statuesque body skirting the writhing crowd of apprentice dancers which chokes the middle of the dark room.

The straggly haired man, undaunted and enraged, takes more than a minute to climb to his feet while frequently resembling an overturned, inebriated tortoise. He staggers a step toward his tormentor but she deftly leans away and her feet come up to twist either side of his ankles. This crash can almost be heard.

x

Across the room, Carol Gerber's path to the Ladies' room is blocked by a side of beef almost wearing a leather vest proclaiming his allegiance to the Hell's Angels, the hill of flesh seemingly oblivious to the fact that that group would reject him on sight.

Unwilling to pay the bully's toll and finding no one willing to prevent its collection, Gerber turns back the way she'd come.

A tight grip clamps to the right side of her rump and her scream is lost in the deafening blasts only the most intellectually brutalized could consider music. She turns quickly, her foot comes up and the impact removes the necessity of paying passage for the next several minutes. The blonde woman withdraws, however, rather than taking advantage of the unbarred corridor.

When she returns to the table and plops down hard into her seat, anger spent now in violence, she tries to give voice to her feelings. Unfortunately her companion, seated across the two foot wide table, had been out of sight of the battle but is much too far away now to be told about it and they must again resort to communicating by gesture. These are much sharper and more emphatic than they had been, though an overabundance of drink, emotion and a complete unfamiliarity with Sign make communication more problematic than it need be.

x

However, much to the blonde beauty's restoration of good spirits, which have nothing to do with the questionable concoction in the glass before her, the next man to tower over their table is far more appetizing than average. Good hair and face, strong body, black pants and crisp white shirt open at the top button, erect carriage and the blonde can hope for more; yes, this one will do much more nicely.

They don't waste time trying to speak; neither can hope to be heard and, from his eye line as she bends forward to rise and the loose front of her top slips away, she knows what he wants. Certainly, in her brief bending to gather her balance before rising, she's also found what she desires.

He leads her into the seething crowd as the next sonic blast batters them, a physical impact that threatens to pound their inner organs to bruised pulp. In less than a minute the couple is absorbed into the writhing, amorphous mass.

Every electric light in the room goes out.

x

Amanda Trieste, left seated at the table on the human amoeba's edge, doesn't like the dark, the candle immediately before her accomplishes little without the aid of the inadequate dim spotlights but then her wide eyes are stunned by the first of many bright flashes that fill the room with worse than lightning intensity. She slaps her hands to her eyes in an effort to protect them from the unexpected assault. The light bursts, synchronized to and punctuating the chaotic beat of the band's next auditory assault, turns the seething mass of bodies into a series of unpredictable still images.

'How the _hell _did I let Carol drag me down here at one in the aay-emm, and how could I let her make me _stay _here at–' she glares at the watch on her wrist, twists her arm so she can see the small face by the light of the candle before her, 'at four in the fucking morning?' Amanda Trieste thinks bitterly, when she can think against the sense shattering noise, in a series of disjointed phrases. 'I'll be deaf for a week. Who can _like _this–?'

A particularly violent discord blasts the word from Amanda's mind and she covers her ears, wishing she had another set of hands to protect her eyes from the cosmic storm. Every flash renders the room as another still image to bright to withstand and she tries to endure the seemingly infinite number of seconds until the clubbing of her senses will finally end.

It ends in an explosion she thinks not even an atomic blast could challenge and everything goes - and remains - black. As her eyes adjust to the completed assault, the tiny candles gradually appear as scattered stars.

Ultimately the black downward pointing spotlights in the ceiling snap on, returning the room to its previous gloom.

That's when the screaming begins.

x

Some undefined sense tells Amanda that she has to see why so many women are screaming so shrilly, must learn why there's a large crater forming in the mass of bodies crowding the dance floor, and that she needs to do it _now_.

Bounding off her chair, Amanda fights to get between bodies, to shove people aside, to break through barrier after barrier to reach those screams.

After much shoving and yanking she breaks through to the empty center, only it's not so empty and Amanda's scream is shrillest of all.

The man Carol Gerber left with stands in the center of the circle, blood soaking his white sleeves, gore dripping from his fingers. Carol lies face down on the floor, her blonde hair spread about her head, blood covering her bare back and seeping about the protruding knife handle.

xxx

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, in the basement of his home in the shadow of the nation's Capital, pulls his cell phone from his pocket. Having given up on sleep – once awake for any reason sleep eludes him like an aggravatingly evasive fly, he'd put on jeans and favorite Marine Corps work/tee shirt and is about to commence his favorite part of the day. It's two-fold, usually done in the evening or night and not before the crack of dawn, and it consists of opening his tool box and starting work on his boat. The first, most satisfying part of the ritual is shutting off his cell phone.

It rings in his hand and he bites back an oath. 'Couldn't have been a second faster?' Next time he will be. Pushing back the temptation to dump the device into a jar of solvent, he thumb-flips the unit open. "Yeah, it's Gibbs." The message is short and by no means sweet. It's nearly five o'clock, they're not on duty for another two hours but no Gamma Shift team is available. "All right, we'll handle it."

He slaps the unit closed. Some head is going to roll, but he'll see that it bounces first.

xx

Michelle Palmer floats, utterly content, in blue water that's so clear that, if she were to turn her head she could see the fish swimming, probably with equal contentment, in the lagoon water behind her. She's nude, having left her scarlet bikini upon the white sand and she allows her arms to float loosely, her legs to drift apart, the water lapping her-

Scream! Mattress jumps hard enough to nearly fling her to the floor! Blackness! Her left hand grips the mattress, right hand slips under the pillow, closes on the gun before she hears the heavy panting beside her, feels the indentation in the mattress, her husband seated beside her.

Her eyes adjust enough in the dim light filtering through the black curtain - her insistence - to see they're alone in their bedroom and Jimmy's body heaves with his hard gasps. She lets go of the gun.

"Jimmy?"

She sits up, boosting herself on her left hand and feels the cooling moisture on the sheet behind him. Under her right hand his bare back and shoulder are clammy wet. "Jimmy?"

Under her gentle stroking of his cold wet back his heaving breaths slow and he can whisper "It's okay. I'm okay."

She's touching him, stroking him, so she doesn't believe him. "What was it?" She'd been slammed out of a very pleasant dream but knows his awakening was an escape - but from what?

"Franklin."

He doesn't have to say more. In the past year that name has been synonymous with nightmare.

x

Megan Wood's boyfriend George Franklin had killed PO2 Michael Kane in his apartment and then tried to murder Wood as she lay helpless in a hospital bed, victim of a merciless beating. Michelle, already wounded, had been pummeled to the floor, barely conscious in the private hospital room and was unable to prevent the attack. Michelle had dropped her Sig in the mêlée of trying to protect Wood. Jimmy, in an attempt to save Wood's life had snatched up her weapon from the floor and was forced to shoot Franklin. Wounding him hadn't been enough, Franklin had still tried to stab Wood and Jimmy had been forced to fire again.

That second shot had killed Franklin.

That death - or as Jimmy saw it, his first murder - had devastated him. In the following weeks he'd gone through torturous recriminations, suffered nightmares and daytime flashbacks; but with psychological help, he'd begun to be able to face what he'd done. What he'd had to do.

But the nightmares still attacked when Jimmy's guard was down.

x

"What did Doctor Gyves say?" she asks into the near darkness; he just a dark silhouette beside her.

Jimmy shakes his head. "I'm not seeing him."

"Honey?" That had been a provision of his remaining on duty, and now that he's an MD it's even more important.

Jimmy shakes his head, getting off the bed. "I need a shower."

Michelle, left behind, runs her hand over the sheet and Jimmy's pillow, bites back a sigh. "While you're showering I have to change the sheets and pillow cases, so the least you could do is tell me why." The hall light clicks on, not quite hurting her eyes, and seconds later his only answer is the sound of running water. "_Jimmy_?"

"'Chelle, I lay on that couch," he calls back through the hall, "and tell him everything I can and the nightmares keep _coming_."

x

Getting up, she turns on the lamp, touching the metal only once to bring up a one-third illumination and tugs the top corner of the sheet loose. Annoyed as she is, she understands his frustration. It had never been right, he'd never trained as an–

The blaring yell of the telephone beside her makes her jump. Who would call at this unGoddessly hour? Who'd want to interfere when she has something important to discuss with her husband, something more important than this call could possibly be? Sighing, she picks up the receiver, striving for a pleasant tone.

Sixty seconds later she's striving not to curse, yanking off her negligee and throwing it at the pillow, abandoning the bed and going down the short hall to the rainfall sounds. "Move over, honey," she says, entering the room, "I'm coming in too."

"_Rrrraaaawwwwwrrrrrrr_."

A moment later he pulls the curtain aside, his face reflecting his shock at her reply.


	2. Into Hell

Chapter Two  
>Into Hell<p>

Tony DiNozzo, convinced that GPS locators are a curse upon mankind, resolves to remove said circuit from his phone and jam it up the nose of the overnight Dispatcher who'd called Gibbs rather than one of the Gamma Shift Supervisors. He grits his teeth, ducks under the yellow Crime Scene tape stretched across the perimeter of a badly spelled 'Shangra-La' club and shoves the metal door. The sun isn't even up behind him but the tiny foyer he finds himself jammed within is black, his least favorite color, and only enhances his foul mood. Only one person he knows likes an overwhelming black decor and she has too much taste and sanity to come here.

This before-crack-of-dawn summons pulled him away from a very nice morning and he has little hope of salvaging it.

The only light in the wooden cell comes from the small window to his left, the one with the smaller circular opening in its center and the even smaller office beyond. He doesn't think much of the small gremlin perched on the undoubtedly small stool; he flashes his badge at the creature.

"Open up, Cerberus, lemme into hell." 'Okay, he's not a dog, but I'm too bummed to count heads.'

A touch to a hidden button and the door comes into the cell with him. There's barely enough space to get past it - who puts two doors opening toward one another into so small a space? - and squeezing into hell doesn't improve his mood.

If DiNozzo's idea of hell is a tremendous black room with a long black bar sharing space with a band's instruments in the short side far to his left, a black hardwood dance floor surrounded by round black tables and a white rectangular cloth laying in the room's center, then he feels that foreboding sense of damnation that comes from never-ending work and is certain he's about to pay in full for every sin he's ever committed.

Over forty people line the long wall before him, being held at bay by uniformed MPDC officers, that wall thereby constituting the only area of color in the Addams Family's dance hall. He's sure that the vast majority of the witnesses, particularly the most useful ones, must be tracked by the scattered trails of dust aimed at each point of the compass.

Having left Jeanne Benoit in a comfortably warm bed - dinner had been great and desert marvelous but he'd been anticipating an even better breakfast - it doesn't help his mood to be the first agent on the scene. There are two marked MPDC patrol units outside but one uniformed officer beside him at the entrance, charged to prohibit entry and exit; so by the dim light he scans the three uniforms among the lined up revelers and makes his selection.

x

He crosses the near-dark room to the far end, ID folder leading the way, the shield on display because he seriously doubts the Sergeant commanding the scene can read either card in the almost light. "What've you got, Sarge?" he asks after identifying himself.

Sergeant Lewis Currey indicates the white shroud in the room's center. DiNozzo had seen it but hadn't wanted to look. 'If I have to have overtime, why can't it be an Indecent Exposure case with a lovely...?'

One of the downward pointing spot lamps, whose issue barely covers an eight inch wide circle, misses spearing the lumpy sheet. The bumps beneath that stained white cloth hint at a body's shape, but there's something tenting the middle of the chest or back, just above the single irregular dark splotch.

DiNozzo and Currey step further into the middle of the room, toward the shroud and away from the line of witnesses, pitching their voices low. "Your vic's ID, from the purse hooked to that chair," he points to the left, to one of two black chairs flanking a small round black table on the opposite edge of the black hardwood floor from the black bar, "says she's Carol Gerber."

"Why is she 'my vic'?" The summons he'd gotten was maddeningly incomplete; no information on Navy or Marine, no assignment, no word if it's a dependent or Serviceperson – hell, he didn't even know the _sex_ of the victim until now.

"Regs say she's yours 'cause a Navy Officer killed her."

'At least let us investigate for two minutes before settling that,' DiNozzo thinks, though this is a microscopic blessing in the midst of black gloom. The door behind him opens again, he looks to it in time to see Gibbs pause within the entry to allow his eyes to adjust. He's wearing his black field jacket and cap, leaving DiNozzo's blue windbreaker the lightest colored material in the club. 'Well,' DiNozzo thinks, 'he's in uniform, maybe people will see him and leave me alone.'

"This is maybe ten or fifteen watts," DiNozzo tells Currey, hoping for better before his Supervisor makes his presence felt. The spotlights on the ceiling point straight down and illuminate eight inches of floor each; the candles on the tables and bar actually give more light. "Any chance of getting some light?"

"Guy behind the bar says they're on max."

"Of course they are." He doesn't want to look at his boss' approach, but he does know that 'Ducky's gonna love this.'

x

"What've you got?" Gibbs asks when he reaches the pair, displaying his shield and ID to the Sergeant.

DiNozzo would like to say he's in the dark, but is in no mood for a head slap. As it is, he's going to have to call Jeanne and tell her there's no chance of his returning; he'll see her in a few miserable hours.

At least the Sergeant can take Gibbs' question.

"Witnesses says the band was playing one of their specialty songs, strobe lights flashing. They went out, came up and your Navy man was making out with a dead woman in the middle of the floor."

"Strobe lights?" Gibbs asks, looking about at the shadowy black chamber. "Why's it so dark in here?"

"Guy behind the bar says they're on max," Currey says.

Gibbs crosses the floor to the black clad young man behind said bar. "You going to turn on the lights?"

"Sorry, I'm not allowed. Boss says we have to preserve the ambiance."

The glare from Gibbs' eyes is blinding and it's occasionally amazing how much enlightenment that glare, which has been known to make hardened Drill Instructors back off, can bring. The young man flees for the control box and in seconds the black chamber is bathed in light.

xx

A second after the lights come on Ziva, wearing an exceptionally casual brown power shirt and blue jeans precedes Jimmy and Michelle Palmer, each as casually dressed, into the chamber. Casual is actually an understatement for the couple, Jimmy wears faded jeans and a 'Gabrielle, Amazon Queen' tee shirt; Michelle's in an equally eclectic red skirt and tee shirt, the latter proclaiming over a white coffee cup marked with a circled five pointed star 'Until I've had my potion, this witch is a bitch'. Gibbs hopes she has a change of clothing at work, because she's not going home soon.

The women follow Gibbs' gestured directions, Ziva to interview the lined witnesses, Michelle to photograph the body and scene. When Jimmy removes the white sheet it's to a ragged chorus of screams and high pitched cries coming from the line of witnesses along the wall. Jimmy catches Michelle's look and shakes his head in exasperation before turning his attention to the body as the police try to restore order. The Examiner wishes there were someplace to put the crowd, like into the Anacostia, but he'll be expected to have at least a preliminary evaluation when his mentor arrives.

He and 'Chelle' have already had a lot to say to one another on the drive in, so much so that he'd decided a Crime Scene had to be an improvement on his early morning, until he'd started hearing from the witnesses. Now he longs for Hawaii.

The victim's backless gold top, barely secured by a thin strand of gold across her back and another reaching behind her neck, is bunched under her so only the strand behind her prevents the lack-of-a-garment from rising above her breasts.

The petite Chinese woman raises her small digital camera, the best she has being her personal device until the MCR Truck arrives, and starts to photograph the body and its surroundings, the flashes like lightning in the huge room. David joins Gibbs and DiNozzo in systematically speaking to the lined up guests, drawing each aside in turn.

x

Before Gibbs can begin at the left end of the line a brunette almost wearing a black dress which is, in his opinion, open much too low and short - or high enough - to masquerade as a scarf, cuts out of the line and intercepts him. "You, NCIS," she demands forcefully, having singled him out by his jacket and cap, "are you the one in charge?"

"Special Agent Gibbs."

"I've been trying to get _them_ to listen to me for nearly an hour. I know who killed Carol! She was with me. We saw it with our own eyes!"

"And you are?" he asks, drawing a notebook and pen from his pocket while the other agents select the first two in line and draw them to opposite corners of the far side of the room.

"Mandy Trieste. Amanda. Carol and I came to party and that _bastard_ killed her!"

"Let's take one thing at a time," he suggests, not wanting her to steamroll over everything in her haste for justice – or is it vengeance? "You came here at what time?"

"A little after one, we were drinking, had a coupla dances, that wacco invited her to dance and then stabbed her! Now what're you going to do about him?"

"Do you know who he is?"

"NO!"

"Well, do you know where he is?"

"They've got him in the back room."

Gibbs looks to the Sergeant still controlling the line, using his 'and you couldn't tell me that' look. There being no help for it now, he turns his attention back to the irate young woman. There doesn't seem to be any obvious place to contain her, so he leads her to the opposite long wall near the inadequate main door - how does this place evade fire codes? - midway between DiNozzo and David.

x

"He's secure." He'd _better _be. "What can you tell me?"

"He killed her!"

She's too certain. Gibbs has never trusted this much certainty, even in things that seem obvious.

"Tell me what happened before you met him."

She sighs, exasperation in every forced syllable. She evidently can't understand why he doesn't rush into the back room to make an immediate arrest. "We got here a while ago, had some drinks, a little dancing..." Limited to the events before the encounter, she pushes down some of her outrage, though Gibbs can see she's just building to the point in her narrative when she can again accuse the one she's already convicted.

"We were having a good time, Carol was more relaxed than I've seen her in weeks, things were going great."

"Anyone take any special notice of her?" Having seen what Carol Gerber is barely wearing, combining lust and booze with the implied anonymity of the dim light, he'll be surprised if the answer is 'no'.

"No. Well, no one that wasn't a jerk."

"Tell me about the jerks."

"_Why_? She slapped them down; they're not the ones who killed her."

Now he's even more interested in them. "In what way did she 'slap them down'?"

"Knocked one jerk on his face, another grabbed her ass and she mashed his nuts with a good kick, but none of that counts."

He can think of some reasons why they'd be unhappy with her. "Why?"

"'Cause they didn't kill her."

"Did you see them?"

"No."

"Had they left the club?"

"Man, I donnoknow, why're you asking me about _those _two? Just arrest the guy in the back room. I told you; he killed her."

He's not sure why he bothers to ask, but: "Did you see him kill her?"

"No, I was outside the crowd and the lights were off."

"Did you see him with the knife?"

"No! Look, if you don't know how to do your job, have your boss send someone in that does!"

x

A few minutes later Ducky comes through the black door, his dark coveralls almost fitting the scene in their somber austerity, though the white lettering upon back and front proclaim him to be the Medical Examiner rather than a denizen of this dark dimension. His anachronistic white fishing hat, replete with a myriad of hooks and lures, belies either impression.

He wastes no time with his surroundings beyond a cursory and probably all-absorbing glance, goes immediately to his Deputy in the middle of the hardwood dance floor and to the unfortunate woman who is their latest subject.

"What have we here, Mr. Palmer?"

Jimmy considers himself wise enough not to reply 'a dead body'; Ducky's not without a sense of humor, but that quality never extends to the first moments of meeting a new charge. Further, the knife handle protruding from the middle of the woman's bloody back precludes any inclination toward levity.

He instead compares the reading on the end of a long silver probe inserted deep into the woman's unresponsive flesh - that action having caused another series of screams that'd long since tried his last nerve - with the thermometer clipped to his 'Gabrielle' tee shirt sleeve. He carries a set in his small travel bag, had snatched it on his way out of the apartment. "Temperature 97.1, ambient 72," he puts his latex gloved hand flat on the floor beside the body, "contagion ... not much different," he shrugs, "I had only the two thermometers."

"You will have to speak to the person in charge of supplies," Ducky quips, noting and ignoring the fetching image of 'Gabrielle, Amazon Queen' before him.

"I will," Jimmy says sheepishly. "I'd say, according to temperature, that death occurred an hour to an hour and a quarter ago."

Ducky looks up from the body. "How long?"

"Er, ab, I mean..." they already have a preliminary report, he's to ignore it, "within the past two hours."

"Precision is always to be striven for, Mister Palmer, but _after _all the indications have been evaluated. One must never allow what appears to be indicated in the preliminary stages of an investigation to cloud perception, leading to a conclusion that later details will only refute after our colleagues have wasted valuable time." He smiles wryly. "It serves to prevent headaches."

x

"What've you got, Duck?"

Ducky looks up at the towering figure in black. Though Jethro asks that question with now almost annoying frequency, Mallard considers himself fortunate his friend had never chosen to habitually ask 'what's up, Duck?'

"Little more than you see before you at this moment."

"Excuse me, sir," Michelle says, pointing down toward a spot before Gibbs' feet. He looks down, seeing circular passive droplets of blood just upward of the dead woman's head. Without the resources of their MCR truck, they don't have the triangular yellow numbered stands and must make do with what they have in documenting and preserving the scene. Coordinate shots will be taken later; right now the close shots are the essential ones. Gibbs steps around to the other side of the body from the Examiners.

"How long has she been dead?"

"About an hour and a quarter."

Jimmy looks up from the body in surprise. "You just said we shouldn't be too precise until all the indications were taken into account."

"Indeed I did, my boy."

"But–"

"I took them into account."


	3. Chief Suspect

Chapter Three  
>Chief Suspect<p>

"What are they?" Gibbs cuts in between Ducky and his Deputy before this turns into an on-site training session. By now the Deputy ME should be beyond that but they know that, with Ducky, he will never be. Yet Gibbs cares only what Ducky's found, not the laborious trail traversed in the search.

x

"The condition of the blood," Ducky begins the rather pedantic explanation - if Jethro wants a lesson in Forensic Pathology he's more than happy to oblige - "both the smearing upon the young lady's back and the outer range of the pooled blood being the only areas not fresh, as it were. The blood spatter," he indicates the array of droplets of various sizes that range outward toward the main door, "is already well advanced in separating the serum from the red blood cells. The degree of lividity - as you see there is limited pooling about the body and yet the remaining blood within the body has not completely settled, nor..." he touches the woman's outstretched fingers with a gloved hand, "is there yet any sign of rigor."

"An hour and a quarter?" Gibbs likes accuracy, this is more than he's grown used to even with his demands for precision.

"Oh. Well, while making my determination, I also overheard some of your witnesses' conversations." With a somewhat smug smile he indicates the row of men and women arrayed along the wall to his right. Not even Jimmy can be put off over this.

"Any idea how she died?" As they speak, Michelle continues to photograph the scene, barely managing the difficult job of excluding the men from her shots. In turn, the three men are momentarily though sharply highlighted in the flashes of her camera.

Ducky glares up at his friend and frowns his opinion at this questionable humor, then indicates the wooden hilt sticking out of the woman's back. "As you can see, a single thrust to the back apparently penetrated the heart, though that has yet to be definitively confirmed. Relatively little bleeding; this knife has a somewhat significant guard of perhaps three-quarters of an inch; and death, judging by the degree of bleeding, was very likely not instantaneous. While blood loss is extensive, I should say the degree of spatter will be affected by increased blood pressure related to the rather strenuous dancing engaged as an affectation by the young these days. I will, of course, be able to tell you more later." He pauses, then asks the question that has been on his mind for some moments. "I have received no information regarding the young lady's Service." His face becomes a stark mask of bright light and sharp shadows from Michelle Palmer's digital camera.

"She's not in the Service."

"Ah, our NCIS connection is therefore the suspect?"

"There's a suspect all right," Gibbs says disgustedly. "Rule One was a complete bust." His tone is as sharp as the camera's flashes.

x

The Number One Rule in Leroy Jethro Gibbs' lexicon is 'never let suspects stay together'. He might consider everyone guilty, or at least a suspect, until proven otherwise, but stories have circulated so heavily that to interview one person here is to interview them all and Amanda Trieste has apparently not been reticent in making her theory known to all and sundry. That's why he abandoned the effort at interviews in favor of whatever the Examiners have uncovered. "Everyone in the room agrees the lights were blinking on and off, pitch black to bright flashes, everyone blinking in and out like a celebrity red carpet walk. _That_ hasn't changed," he finishes, casting a sharp look at Michelle.

"Sorry." She lowers the camera.

"But they all agree," Gibbs continues, holding Palmer II in the conversation, "that the same guy is the only one who could've done it."

"Indeed?" Ducky knows his friend likes corrupted eyewitness accounts about as much as _he _does bodies that have been carelessly moved by the unthinking masses determined to play detective.

"Yeah, the descriptions are all the same, and Metro has Ensign Mark Cabrera in the back room with blood all over him."

x

Before Gibbs can say more, DiNozzo joins them. Though he has interviewed only three witnesses to this point, "I interviewed the band, they get off at five - they're miffed about staying over; who'd think? They had just finished playing," he checks his pad, "'Die, Flaytered Mouse'." He sees Ducky wince. "What's the matter, doc, not a big fan of interpretations?"

Ducky glares up at him. "There _is_ no rock and roll _interpretation _of Die Fledermaus." But then his outrage clears. "However, I did one evening have the pleasure of attending a performance at the Sydney Opera House when Pierre Monteux conducted the orchestra. Now that was a brilliant interpretation. I remember saying to my companion, an exceptionally lovely–"

"Duck," Gibbs interrupts. When the man gets into the third level of a nested digression it's well past time to stop him, though DiNozzo nearly chokes on the mental image and his strained effort to keep a serious expression.

"Ah, yes, of course. You were saying, Anthony?"

x

When Anthony can say anything at all, it's: "The piece, Deflate a mouse - I mean 'Die, Flaytered Mouse', is accompanied by bright flashing light ... strobes ... and at the end everything goes black for ten seconds."

Gibbs surveys the black-painted room, ignoring the man's struggles to hold a serious expression. DiNozzo ultimately has to surrender and turn his attention elsewhere.

The small candles, one on each of the surrounding tables and the few on the long bar, would've been absolutely no benefit to people on the crowded dance floor. If the lights only came up to the level they were at when he arrived, and that ten seconds after the final bright flash, they would have been worse than useless to abused eyes.

"With those strobe lights," Ducky points out, mirroring his thinking, "perception of the scene would've been reduced to a series of disjointed still images, and ten seconds would be insufficient time for eyes to adjust to the too-distant candlelight."

"Especially if the room was as dim as it was when we arrived," DiNozzo concurs, a little late in Gibbs' opinion.

He wants to know "How much would the witnesses have been able to see when the lights did steady up?"

Ducky shakes his head. "I should think their perceptions, therefore their statements, would be highly questionable."

Gibbs had long ago reached that same conclusion, though with greater heat. "DiNozzo," is all he says as he leads the man toward the guarded rear room to their right of the bar, where he'd already been told their suspect is being held.

xx

This room is also at the far end of the right wall's long witness line, tucked into the corner beyond the small platform containing the band's instruments. There's a uniformed MPDC officer stationed outside the office; he gives one knock on the door and it's opened by another policeman. Gibbs and DiNozzo display their IDs, introduce themselves and ask the officer to step outside.

Ensign Mark Cabrera, seated in a folding chair before the facing desk, looks little like a Naval Officer in the fragments of his uniform; navy blue pants and open necked white shirt missing both tie and jacket. Both shirt sleeves are covered in blood from cuffed hands to elbows, the palms of his hands are also bloody and the black pants have transfer rather than spatter patterns on the lap. "I didn't do it," Cabrera says as soon as the door is closed. "You gotta believe I didn't do it."

"Tell us about it, Ensign," Gibbs directs, standing with DiNozzo before the man, towering over him.

"I didn't do it, sir."

That's not what he'd wanted to hear. Everyone says that. "Tell us about it."

"I don't know her, I have no reason to kill her, I don't know what happened."

"_Tell us about it_ _from the beginning_, Ensign."

"Yes, sir," he says, flinching but then rallying under Gibbs' Drill Instructor tone. While he talks, Gibbs and DiNozzo probe his words through the filter of his face, voice and body language.

x

"I'm assigned to the USS New York. We're in the Navy Yard for a four day layover before resuming patrol in the Mid-Atlantic as part Operation Southern Shield four hundred miles off the coast of Georgia. My buddies wanted to see some of the other night sights, then they headed back to the ship, but I knew this place is open extra late and I've gotten lucky here in the past so I figured I'd come and try my luck. I didn't know it'd run out."

It's well known that a uniformed Officer has little trouble attracting companionship, but Cabrera's shirt sleeves haven't been protected. "Where's your jacket?" Gibbs asks.

"I left it at my chair. I was getting hot."

Gibbs won't say a word about that, one act almost defeating the purpose of the other, and even DiNozzo has enough sense to keep his comments to himself. "Go on."

"Well, the music was loud, louder than I'd ever remembered it but I was having a good time. I spotted this pair of babes sitting at a table near the edge of the dance floor and decided to try my luck. The brunette wasn't much but the blonde, well, she got my attention."

The woman's gold lamé top had barely been upheld by thin spaghetti straps that left her back and much of her torso bare, and the Investigators suspect the front didn't do a much better job of maintaining modesty.

x

"Well, anyway, she agreed to dance. It was so loud in there that I could've asked if she was from Mercury and she'd've taken it as an offer to dance, but anyway we were on the floor. Then the lights started flashing, everything was like slides, still images. I was getting a lot of glimpses of her, that top was eye-catching but the way it moved, the way she moved..." Gibbs catches Tony's eye and glares him into continued silence.

"Anyhow, it was kind of disorienting, the blinking I mean, and then suddenly the band hit the loudest note, stopped and everything just went black, like totally dark. The next thing I know that babe's in my arms. I couldn't think of anything else to do so I kissed her. I was holding her against me and I'm sucking face when..." He looks around the room, anywhere but up at the Agents, but finally there's nothing more to see.

"Well, the lights come up, part way, like the most they were up all night and I'm still kissing her but she's like a dead weight in my arms. She slides down my body and suddenly there's a dozen women shrieking. The babe's going down, I'm backing away, and then I realize my arms and hands feel wet, I look at them and see they're covered in blood. In the light, what there was of it, it looks like barbeque sauce but so does her back and she's face down and not moving and there's this knife sticking out of her back and everyone's screaming and then these three guys with '_Bouncer'_ on their tee shirts grab me and wrestle me to the floor and I'm too surprised to fight them off.

"For a couple minutes everyone's insane and then I'm dragged into this room with two of the bouncers holding me in the chair. In the light the blood on my sleeves and hands looks like blood now. They hold me in here. Next thing I know the police are questioning me. They find out I'm Navy and one says to the other 'Call NCIS' and here you are."

x

It's a reasonably credible story, for the moment, though Gibbs expects a lot more detail from his team. The white sleeves of Cabrera's shirt are heavily stained, as are the lap of his pants, but those look like transfer stains from his sleeves to his lap; perhaps careless touch, perhaps not, he'll let Abby decide. The palms of Cabrera's hands are stained, but not the backs, which Gibbs finds interesting. Someone holding a knife should be expected to have blood on the back of at least one hand, though this is by no means universally assured. He'll send Palmer II in for a couple score pictures.

"What more can you tell us?" he asks. Amanda Trieste had been determinedly, belligerently convinced of the Ensign's guilt, but is that grieving for a friend or an attempt to shift suspicion from herself? One key aspect in the three things that lead to identifying a murderer - motive - usually presupposes knowledge of the victim and, thus far, Trieste seems to be the only one here who can make that claim.

"Nothing more," Cabrera insists. "That's all I know."

"Don't hold out on us, Ensign. It won't go well."

"No, sir. I didn't have anything to hide."

x

Gibbs isn't going to allow the young man to see how disgusted he is. "When you were kissing her, you didn't notice she was dead?"

"She wasn't dead. She was moaning while we were kissing – while I was kissing her – but she wasn't dead."

"_Did you kill her_?" Gibbs demands, his eyes locked hard on Cabrera's.

"No sir, I swear to God I didn't kill her! I didn't - _don't _even know who she was."

Again that point. Motive. The truly anonymous killer, stranger to the victim, is neither unknown nor is truly rare, but in this case he doesn't believe this is a stranger-on-stranger killing. The timing is too precise, the placement of the weapon too accurate. It hinges on the music, that 'Die, flatered mouse'. How often has the band performed that piece? He hopes it's not every night.

On the whole, Gibbs would favor someone who knows the victim, if he can identify him or her.

"When you were dancing, in those still images, did you see anyone behind her, someone who might have killed her?"

"Guys," Cabrera spreads his bloody arms helplessly, his expression lost and doomed, "I was staring at her tits."

xx

Leaving DiNozzo to continue to grill the already cooking Cabrera, Gibbs consults with the Metro Officers outside the door. "When we got here," Officer Demaris says, "Cabrera was inside with two bouncers."

"Did he say anything to you?"

"Just that he was innocent."

"Did you believe him?"

"I've heard it before, but rarely from someone covered in blood and already fingered by 42 witnesses."

"Yeah." That's something that truly bothers him. Kept together in a crowd by the Club staff, the 'witnesses' had reached a consensus that taints their testimonies, making them, both individually and collectively, useless. Yes Cabrera was with the victim, yes he's covered with blood, but did 42 witnesses see everything?

No, they agree on everything, and even in the telling and retelling, even before Metro arrived, memories were being revised to conform to the story.

Is Cabrera lying? Possible. Is he guilty? Possible. Are the 42 witness statements definitive and overwhelming? Impossible.

xx

The band has been sequestered by their instruments on the small platform between the long bar and the offices and are being questioned individually by Michelle and Ziva, who focus on the trio as the ones most likely to have a good vantage, an almost one foot elevation and knowledge of when the lights would come up. Gibbs signals the women to him.

"This last song," he asks them in tones that don't carry more than two feet, "do they play it much?

"They describe it as a signature song," Ziva tells him.

"They play it every night before their fourth break," Michelle concurs.

"So, same time every night."

"Yes," Ziva says, well aware she's delivering bad news. She hadn't liked hearing it either.

"Any of them see anything?"

"Not 'till the screaming started," Michelle says.

"Where's the Probie?" DiNozzo wants to know when he comes out of the room and joins them, leaving Cabrera guarded by the Metro officers. Actually he's wanted to know for quite some time, but he'd held out hope McGee would show up while they were interviewing their suspect. The sun should be up by now.

"He is not answering his cell phone," Ziva says.

DiNozzo glances at Gibbs and immediately regrets it. It's been almost two weeks since Ireland, but "Rule Five?"

"Honeymoon's _over_."


	4. Chess

Chapter Four  
>Chess<p>

The body of Carol Gerber has been recovered from the black hardwood dance floor of the poorly-spelled 'Shangra-La' Club and now resides in a black body bag in the lowermost level of NCIS Headquarters. The young woman had gone to the eclectic club with her friend Amanda Trieste late in the night, had ended the party more than an hour before dawn face down on the floor, a long knife protruding from the middle of her back, and now she spends the early morning in NCIS' Autopsy suite.

Ensign Mark Cabrera, assigned to the Cruiser New York, has been secured in Holding, his uniform sent down to Abby's lab to await her early morning arrival. The arms of his uniform shirt are covered in blood, and transfer stains from thoughtless touches on his lap while he awaited interrogation in the rear office of the 'Shangra-La' club mean that his trousers are also forfeit. All that escaped damage are his uniform jacket and tie, left originally at his table at the club and themselves confiscated as evidence, while the Ensign himself is outfitted in unflattering bright orange NCIS coveralls.

xx

In the Autopsy suite, Ducky and Jimmy wheel the gurney bearing the black body bag containing the body of their latest charge up parallel to the first silver table. "Doctor, do you remember George Franklin?"

Ducky stops, surprised by the question. "Indeed I do, Mr. Palmer," he says, wishing he could lie. He remembers him as a subject on this very table. He remembers him as a murderer his Deputy had been forced to kill to save a young woman's life. He remembers him as the subject of many of his friend's nightmares and torments. He decides, in consideration of their current case and the unfortunate young woman in the black bag between them, to move past the preliminaries. "Are the nightmares back?"

Jimmy nods.

x

Ducky had been intimately connected with much of the torment his friend had suffered, a touchstone and sounding board in long, soul baring conversations. He knows the man had been in regular consultations with NCIS' Psychiatrist and its Chaplain, and in this room he'd made his friend to know he is here but he would never initiate questions. But now it seems they're about to embark on another journey through his Deputy's tortured soul.

"I think 'Chelle's getting fed up with me and these nightmares," Jimmy confesses dismally, not moving to unzip the black bag upon the gurney.

"I do not believe that." Ducky'd always found the young woman helpful and supportive, and aware that there's little defense against nightmares. She also has considerable justifications for night terrors, how often does the couple discuss those? None of his business.

"You both know that what you've gone through will not be cured in under a year. Psychoanalysis, despite the decrees of Insurance companies, is not a splint and bandage discipline, nor are the problems it addresses resolved in the proverbial six days or even six 'visits'."

"Sometimes I just don't want to talk, not to Dr. Gyves, not to 'Chelle, not to..."

"Now there you are making a mistake. My boy, as I believe you have perceived over the past several years, I am always a firm proponent of talking. I suspect you've noticed how beneficial it's been to our charges."

It feels good to smile. "They certainly do listen."

"You should remember that, Mister Palmer."

Jimmy looks at him quite closely, realizing there's a lot his mentor isn't quite saying aloud. But "There are days I wish I'd missed."

"I do not have to tell you the consequences of that."

"I hit him, he died. If I'd missed him, Megan Wood would be dead. Sometimes - a lot of times - I wish there'd been a third choice."

"There was. Your wife could also be dead."

He sympathizes with his Deputy but, seeing the white face presented to him, he knows Jimmy will not cut off channels of communication.

xxx

Gibbs and his team arrive at 0700, what would normally be their start of their shift, and Gibbs is glad Michelle Palmer had the sense to change her clothes to a pair of tan pants and jacket over a white blouse. He doesn't care how the garments had been in her gym locker, he'd just glad she's out of that red outfit she'd shown up in at the Crime Scene.

Anthony DiNozzo casts a glare at the vacant desk to his right; McGee hadn't come in early this morning, leaving his team mates to carry the ball. But when Gibbs hears the elevator bell at 0707 he's out of his seat in time to intercept McGee before the agent can enter the bullpen.

"McGee, can you _count_?"

x

Tim McGee, startled by this interception and demand, isn't sure why he's being greeted thus, but decides the smartest thing to do is to answer the question as it'd been asked. "Yes, boss, I can count."

"Good. What comes between four and six?"

"Five." Gibbs's glare goes to his 'keep going' one. "Rule Five?" The look intensifies. "Never be unreachable?" It reaches 'deadly'. He pulls out his cell phone and realizes the unit is on 'silent' mode - and the screen displays '9 Missed Calls'. "I'm sorry, boss, Shav had a late night; you know yesterday was Easter, I mean of course you know that, yesterday being one of the biggest days in the church so she was really, really busy but of course you knew that too. And when she got home I turned the ringer off on the living room phone so she could get some sleep this morning but I forgot my cell phone was on silent too and–" Gibbs' hard hand to the back of the head ends McGee's expanding explanation. "It won't happen again."

"Pray it doesn't. I might get annoyed. Get in there and help find our murderer."

McGee, knowing his fate should he dare to ask 'what murderer?', goes quickly to his desk.

x

Gibbs, following him in, snaps "DiNozzo!"

"On your three, boss!"

Gibbs' glare is his 'don't be a smart ass' version. "What've you got on Gerber?"

"A lot," DiNozzo declares, reaching for the plasma screen remote control.

The image is a Booking photo beside a Metro PD Arrest form. "For those of you who didn't take speed reading, such as McTortoise here, I'll summarize. Carol Gerber has been into everything from Identity theft, credit card fraud, even computer embezzling from daddy's company – very bad girl; basically a bad seed who grew into a bad tree. Latest word is she's worth almost a million, probably all of it dirty."

"How does someone like that stay out of prison?" Ziva demands.

"I'm _glad_ you asked," DiNozzo declares expansively and, at the press of the remote control button, the image changes to a middle-aged man seen getting into a limousine, whose door is held open by someone so obviously 'muscle' he could do movies. "Meet Daddy, a.k.a. Steven Gerber. Daddy's very protective of daughter and daughter knows it; must be why she even swiped from _him _at one point and got away with it. If she were mine, she'd go from Corporal Punishment to Major Disaster without stopping at Sergeant Slaughter, but there's no accounting for brains.

"Word is he doesn't like her behavior but at 18 it's a little late to start training her. Basically she's the LiLo of the non-celebrity set. Anyhow, he's kept her out of the big chill for years but this last time she was picked up for overdoing it with a lot of other people's credit cards, spent two days in traction before someone handling the evidence got _dis_tracted, the evidence got corrupted and she walked. She was out last night celebrating with her friend when she got cut off."

"Maybe a dissatisfied victim decided to settle the account?" McGee speculates.

"If so, we're looking at some _more_ overtime. She's scammed or 'become' over 500 people since learning how to manipulate plastic and people, or is that plastic people?"

x

"Cabrera one of them?" Gibbs demands of Palmer.

"No word so far," she admits, looking up at him and wishing she hadn't found herself on the hot seat without seeing the transition coming. "I haven't been able to get his bank records, the banks aren't open yet, sir."

He looks at the clock on the wall; it's 7:12. "You've got two hours."

"Sounds about right," DiNozzo says sotto voce, and then picks up the tale before Gibbs can respond. "She and her friend Amanda Trieste decided to make an early morning of it, celebrating her newest burst of freedom. They got to the club about 0100 last night, were going to stay 'till closing, which is 0500."

"Is it too much to hope there's surveillance _anywhere_?" Gibbs is not going to bother considering internal coverage, but is there at least something at the entrance?

"Shangra-La has nothing, boss - no cameras, no light to shoot by." When they weren't using the special effects from the strobe, the room never got better than fifteen watts, if even that much since that was the output of the spotlights at the time and the candles on the bar and every table were useless. They'd provided enough light to see the people at the same small table, but beyond a few feet the candles were no better than starlight and not as elegant.

"What they did have," DiNozzo continues, "was a veritable stampede out the club's only doors. That was the only thing that told the guy at the door anything was wrong. He figured about a hundred people busted out in the first surge, then it trickled off but still people were leaving for a good ten more minutes before he got the word to close the door. He thinks nearly two hundred people got out."

"All right," Gibbs won't express what they're all thinking, "we'll do things the hard way. Palmer, you keep backgrounding Cabrera, did he have any dealings with Gerber? DiNozzo: dig into Trieste, everything there is about her and her relationship with Gerber. She seems to have been the only one who knew her that didn't stampede for the hills. McGee: Gerber's victims; see who wants revenge the most. David: Gerber's friends – and enemies, if any. Was this other than payback by one of her victims? I'll be with Ducky."

x

As Gibbs leaves, McGee, not entirely certain which bullet he's dodged this morning, brings his computer out of hibernation and an alert immediately flashes upon his screen. He's set the system to alert him to any mention of specific key words appearing on the Internet, one of them being 'NCIS'. This had actually worked against him on their last significant case nearly two weeks ago, but he hopes distressing fate won't attack again.

When he opens the link and reads the report, his hopes are dashed, and as he continues to read he grows more and more distressed and decides that this time he's not going to be the one to make this report. It's against his practice, against regulations, to do this but if ignorance is bliss then he decides that this time he's going to remain blissful.

x

He restores his attention to his assigned work, but less than a minute later hears: "Okay, Probie, out with it."

His train of thought derailed, he turns to the senior agent to his left. "Out with what?" Gibbs is gone. DiNozzo wouldn't be trying to satisfy his curiosity about non-case-related things otherwise.

"You're hard wired to be on time," his favorite tormentor says, more for the benefit of the women flanking them, "and no one looks as happy as you do after getting a dressing down and whack from Gibbs."

"You do," Tim quips but realizes he's probably been a bit too blissful. His mind had drifted briefly to last evening; he got careless, and now he senses he's going to have to pay for it. Blasted distractions.

"Well, yeah, but you don't," Tony insists. "After morning, Easter kind of winds down and I suspect she had time to breathe. You didn't forget your alarm. What were you _really _doing last night?"

"Do not ask stupid questions, Tony," Ziva admonishes sharply from across the bullpen. What she considers the newly married man to have been doing that made him late this morning, and in too much good humor, is obvious.

"Actually," McGee tells his friends with a self-satisfied smile, "we were kind of celebrating, our first big holiday and all, and she did have the chance now to wind down, so we _were _up late."

"Ah-HAH! Doing _what_, probilicious?"

"Never mind."

Undeterred, Tony wants to know "So then exactly what time _did _you wind down?"

"Nine thirty."

"AH ha. So what were you _doing _that made you take the phone off the hook?" He has some ideas of how she might recover from the nightmare Thomas Trovillot had plunged NCIS into two weeks ago - it had worked for him with Mary Conner - but he's interested in what plot McGee's author's mind had concocted.

"Agent DiNozzo," Michelle tries to protest.

"Tony, that is not any of your business," Ziva leaps in.

But McGee gives them no chance. "Playing chess."

x

DiNozzo had felt he was on a roll but now his lascivious leer falls off his face, leaving no expression behind. He'd had, he thought, a quip prepared for every possible answer except "Chess?"

"Newlywed chess?" Michelle asks from Tim's right side, her voice carrying a particularly knowing inflection.

He turns to her. "You got it," he assures her with a satisfied smile.

"You guys played _chess_?" DiNozzo demands, unable to wrap his head around the idea.

"_Newlywed _chess," Tim corrects.

"What the hell is that?"

"Michelle told me about it." Tim turns to the petite woman. "You wanna take it? You've played a lot more than I have." He also doesn't want to be the one discussing private things so he leaves it to the woman's discretion.

"Newlywed chess," Michelle tells Tony with relish that says so clearly 'you're never going to get to play it', "is like regular except that for every piece taken, the victor gets to remove a piece of the loser's clothing."

"Sounds _good_." He looks forward to playing 'date chess' with Jeannel.

"Capturing any of the rear row pieces also requires a measure of affection," she continues, "and each piece has its own requirements and minimum times."

"You don't say."

"But if the man captures the Queen, the game can be delayed by about an hour or so while he captures the Queen."

"What about a check-mate?" DiNozzo asks lasciviously.

McGee shrugs. Michelle looks a bit lost. "I don't know," she confesses, "I've never played a game that's gone beyond the Queen-capture stage."

"It seems to me," Ziva says bitingly, "an unnecessarily complicated lead-in to the sex act."

"Then you've never played cards," Tim assures her, enjoying her blank face as much as the recollection of the first time he'd played his wife's version during their honeymoon. "For a pacifist, Shav devised a version of 'War' that'll knock your socks off."

"I'd love to learn," Michelle announces.

"I'll have her give you the rules. I'm sworn to secrecy."

"Nice fidelity, Webelos."

"I shall keep my socks where they are," Ziva declares.

"Your loss," Tim assures her.


	5. Too Much Information

Chapter Five  
>Too Much Information<p>

Gibbs walks into the Autopsy suite, surprised to find Mallard seated at his desk rather than deep into Carol Gerber's corpse. Jimmy is at the middle table, washing the woman's body. She's laying face down, the long thin wound a haunting obscenity upon her back. Most of her unshed blood has already settled in the front of her body.

"What can you tell me?" Now that he's close enough, Gibbs sees Ducky is working on report forms upon his desk, but they're from yesterday's case. Today's corpse, after she's cleaned, must be re-photographed, third set, and then x-rayed before the first step in the internal examination may begin.

"Morning, Jethro," Ducky says. It's not an enthusiastic greeting and neither of them considers it to be a good morning, particularly for their most recent subject.

"What'd you find?"

"The wound has yet to be examined; you are much too early. The knife has already gone upstairs to Abby," he glances at his watch, "and I expect she's working on it even now. I can tell you that the blade was eleven inches long, with a maximum width of one and one half inches."

"Carving knife?" The hilt had looked like one.

"Yes. The single horizontal wound appears to have entered the heart, but that is as much as I can tell you before we begin the internal examination."

Gibbs had known most of that when he'd come. Something about this case bothers him, on the gut level, but he doesn't have a grasp yet on what it might be. He's used to following his gut, but this time there's more than the usual distortion in what he's seeing. His gut therefore remains unfocused and he never likes the sensation.

"When will you know?"

"We've taken to dividing the work; Mister Palmer will conduct the External examination _while I await his report_." His words are thrown across the room behind him.

"You'll have it soon, Doctor," Palmer assures him.

"I expect so, Doctor. I am growing bored."

Gibbs walks out. "You're the one who wanted to promote him," he says before the doors close.

xxx

McGee takes a few moments in Gibbs' absence - the boss usually goes in search of Abby's and Ducky's reports - to attend to his delayed personal needs. But as soon as he leaves, Tony DiNozzo slips into his vacant chair.

"What are you doing?" Ziva demands from across the bullpen. She can see that Michelle is also aware of this minor invasion, though the woman doesn't glance at either of them.

"I don't buy it," Tony says.

"You do not buy what?"

"That explanation."

"You do not buy that the woman would be tired after staying late at Church for each of your four consecutive High Holy Days?"

Tony is about to correct that Maundy Thursday through Easter isn't traditionally called that, that that's a Jewish phrase, but if he's going to carry through his plan he doesn't have more than a few seconds. Of course, he's also not thrilled by having been dragged out of Jeanne Benoit's arms before dawn only to learn the Probie hadn't been equally inconvenienced. Life isn't fair - just because the couple's married...

"Not her," he tells Ziva, "though I've never figured a chess game to wear anyone out before. But the McTomic clock's never late, he's hard wired for punctuality, and the Rules are engraved onto his motherboard. Now hush, I don't have much time." He manipulates the mouse as fast as he can. "Good thing he left his email open; let's see what I can fiiiiinnnnnnn..."

x

As the women watch they see DiNozzo's anticipatory grin slide from his lips and his eyes grow steadily wider until neither believes he can manage another millimeter. His mouth falls open, then further and further still until it's hanging loose.

"Tony?" Ziva calls as they watch the color steadily drain from DiNozzo's face. He sits dumbfounded for long seconds and then, in a flurry of motion, closes the page he'd been examining and restores the desktop to the state it'd been in before his invasion.

"Tony?" Ziva's second call breaks through to the distressed man but he doesn't answer, just vacates the desk as though it's on fire and exits the bullpen. He passes the returning McGee in the outer walkway but doesn't slow, and actually averts his eyes from his partner.

"Tony?" Tim asks, mildly confused by this rapid brush-by. But DiNozzo keeps his pace and Tim turns back barely in time to dodge an even more rapidly moving Ziva. When he tracks her it's in time to watch Tony enter the men's room further up the corridor and Ziva, not atypically for her, doesn't hesitate to shove the still closing door out of her way.

Continuing on to the bullpen, Tim finds Michelle Palmer alone in the enclave at the desk beyond his own. "Any idea what that was all about?"

She shrugs. "I can honestly say I have absolutely no idea."

"Well, they'd better get back before Gibbs does. He's already walked up and down on me over Rule 5."

"I have a feeling that's _not _the rule they'll have to worry about. More like 10."

"'Never screw over your partner'. Sounds ominous."

Michelle has no intention of telling him how ominous it is.

xx

"Tony." At the word the man whirls to the door, his fugue shattered, but he wonders why he should be surprised. In here he's safe only from the Probette, whose hand would probably break off if she touched that again-closing door.

"Is it too much to hope for that you'll ever get the concept of a men's room?"

"Yes," Ziva declares, stepping further in.

"Sanitary customs in your country must take a lot of getting used to."

"You can spare us some time by telling me what you found that turned you as white as Casper the Ghost."

"The animated Harvey cartoons or the 1995 Bill Pullman / Christina Ricci version?" he asks, straining for levity.

She steps close to him, tightly restrained anxiety over her former love's wellbeing leading the charge. "You will be able to understudy for the messy ghost when they find your body if you do not tell me what you found that so upset you."

"Nice cultural reference, but since Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter died in the lav–"

"_Will you tell me or will you not_?" she punctuates the demand with a fist to his chest.

"Okay, I'll tell you," he says, holding the abused portion of his anatomy, though his tone turns peevish. "You know that hurts."

"Be happy I am in a good mood."

"If that's a good mood I'd hate to see–"

She punches the other side of his chest. "_Tell me what you saw in our partner's email that made you turn white!_"

"Okay. All you had to do was ask." She's too mad to protest this. "They were talking about how much things are going to change for them when the baby comes in October."

x

This is so far removed from the cataclysm she'd anticipated that it takes her a moment to come to the realization that "Siobhan is pregnant?"

"Well, _yeah_," he says in that comic 'get-it-now?' manner that makes her want to hit him again. "That's how babies usually come."

"But _wait_. October? It is mid-April; they got married on Saint Patrick's Day, barely a month ago."

"_Yeah_."

"But that would mean ... October, she had to be pregnant _by _February."

"Remember when Siobhan hid out in McVasion's apartment through January until her wounds from the beatings Morley gave her healed? Obviously he played more than nursemaid."

She shakes her head sharply. "You are saying that Webelos McGee and the _Reverend _Siobhan O'Mallory...? No. I do not believe it. _You_, Tony, I would believe it of; but not them."

"Believe it. It's right in their emails."

"Which you had no business balling into!"

"Butting. But it's true. The Probie probed too hard and put a bun in her oven two months too soon."

x

The evidence seems compelling, but Ziva doesn't want to consider it. This is not an investigation, it is an invasion. "Even if they did, that is nobody's business but theirs."

"She's not even showing," he muses.

'Is he really this dense?' "The woman wears chasubles and other liturgical attire in public, Tony. Most of her congregation never sees her in much different attire. She could go for months before 'showing'. And I repeat, it is _their _business!"

"You used to be so hot and heavy with McFickle. Aren't you the least bit cur–?"

"_No_. And neither should you be." She turns from him and the issue, nearly yanking the handle from the door.

xxx

"I still do not know," Ziva David gripes twenty minutes later to the Gibbsless bullpen for want of anything else to think of but the madness DiNozzo has inflicted upon her mind. She'd rather focus in the inequity of Gamma Shift not taking this case instead of putting the daggers she'd stare at the seemingly oblivious McGee into words, "how it is that we caught this case on our off-time. Four in the morning is too early for murder."

No one comments on the incongruity of the remark.

"At least," Michelle says as crossly, returning fire for fire, "we whittled the forty useless 'eyewitnesses' to the one that actually may know something."

Ziva swallows the young witch's flame. 'At least,' she thinks, 'she is not aware of the real reason I wish to chew someone's head off.' She resolves to get back on the case and away from her wounded, burning heart. 'Tim and I may not always have been cautious last year;' she thinks as she recalls their many tempestuous rendezvous in their private enclave on the Emergency stairs, 'but _I _at least had sense enough to keep up on the damn pills. _She's _probably never taken one in her sheltered life, but that is no _excuse _for Tim's _carelessness_!'

She swallows this fire as well, her throat scorched and seared by the effort, and resolves _again _to concentrate on the case.

x

"Amanda Trieste had been that the only 'eyewitness'," Ziva stresses to Tony in particular, not allowing herself to even peripherally see the seemingly oblivious McGee. "Ensign Cabrera's fate, however, depends on what she saw from across a crowded room, blocked by that crowd, in pitch darkness."

"Whether she knows something or not, this should be someone else's ca–"

"Or maybe, DiNozzo," Gibbs fires the volly as he strides into the bullpen, "you're not interested in working here and would rather find another job."

No one dares say a word.

"DiNozzo, you're with me."

"Where're we going, boss?" he asks as he starts to gather his supplies.

"Gerber estate, see the father and find out what he knows. McGee, you got that list of Gerber's enemies yet?"

"Errr, not yet."

"Well, get _on _with it," he commands sharply, continuing to his desk and gathering his shield case and weapon. "David, you and Palmer bring in Trieste."

"Yes, sir," Ziva looks forward to the encounter. She'd heard the mouthy woman's attitude toward Gibbs at the 'Shangra-La' club and hopes the young woman will try the same with her.

Gibbs, as he exits the bullpen, glances back to McGee. "Check-mate."

xxx

Steven Gerber's home is a palatial marble and fine stone estate, but as Gibbs' car winds the curving driveway two men step out of the front door and neither is Gerber. Detective Lieutenant Jeffrey Carpenter and his partner Clifford Scott descend the steps and reach Gibbs as he exits the vehicle. Carpenter's expression is wooden, anger held with tight restraint anger, but Worrell looks put out.

"What are you doing here?" each senior officer asks in near-unison, making it hard to tell who initiated the demand.

"This is NCIS' case," Gibbs clarifies.

"Not this time, pal. According to Captain Smally this case is Metro's all the way. Civilian stabbed in a night club. The chief suspect may be a Navy man, but that's not enough for you to get the lead."

This is uncommon for them; normally the pair can find a working arrangement, not always an easy one but a workable one.

"What's back of this?" Gibbs asks, wondering where Smally gets off turning a Federal case into a local one.

Carpenter just shakes his head. "Bug up his ass, you know how it is. Budget's coming up and we've worked too many cases together, but that Internet one could've made Smally famous in the District."

"Tell him next time to _work _the damn case if he wants the glory."

Carpenter's laugh is more a humorless bark. But while their jurisdictions overlap on this one, they've worked too well for too long for some prima dona with bars to try to take over the stage. "We'll share, maybe. If you're nice."

To anyone else, Gibbs would have a more caustic reply than "I'm always nice." He does reconsider, however. "Except when I'm a bastard."

"Hard to tell when you're not." But the smile fades from under Carpenter's moustache. "Seriously, LeeJay, this one has Hell written all over it. Tycoon's daughter murdered by a Navy Junior Officer; Gerber's got two lawyers there now and more on the way, to say nothing of a sobbing wife and we are saying nothing. He's grieving with one hand and litigating with the other; I've never even heard of half the Navy departments he's suing."

Gibbs checks his watch, more for show. It's barely after nine, they'd gotten the original call around four. "A bit early to go to court."

"For you and I, maybe," Carpenter says with heavy irony, recalling how many hall benches he's warmed at eight. "Gerber's a grieving father."

"Is he?"

"You're not going to get anything out of him, but we'll go back in and you can judge for yourself."

x

A morning coated butler admits them into a drawing room that's midway between conspicuous consumption and inelegant opulent, displaying the aftereffects of the too-fast attainment of vast amounts of money, as though the occupants of this house have embraced the principle of Nouveau Riche and carried it to the ultimate extent.

Ducky would declare this a classic case for which the term was coined.

"You back already?" Steven Gerber demands with the air of a god who's sent his subordinate to perform his will and is put out that said subordinate had a thought to call his own.

Gibbs is unfazed, he's dealt with many wannabe gods in his career. Instead he displays the talisman of his own power. "Special Agents Gibbs, DiNozzo, NCIS."

"So you finally showed up," Gerber declares, looking down at him as only an Olympian can an uneducated shepherd. "I suppose you're here to apologize for your henchman."

The two three-piece suited lawyers flanking the man actually wince, clearly trying - racing - to determine how they may keep the situation from shattering any further and doubting anything they can say can salvage this encounter. Gibbs could almost bring himself to feel sorry for them if he didn't have his attention focused on Gerber. The black dressed woman seated on the couch and clutching a black handkerchief seems lost in both depths.

"We're here to ask you a few questions about your daughter's death." Normally he'd include a sympathetic tone, now he's not interested in making the effort.

"The only question is why your flunky murdered my daughter."

Gibbs isn't sure Amanda Trieste isn't this man's daughter as well. "So far we don't have any indication of who killed her."

Gerber turns to the woman on the couch. "See, just what I told you. Cover their asses, try to get out of–"

"There's no evidence he even knew her," Gibbs says sharply enough to capture their attention. "There are no witnesses to the moment of your daughter's death. If you have any evidence that he did know her, I'm willing to listen."

"You're _willing _to _listen_. Well, _Agent_ Gibbs, I'm willing to do a lot more than listen. If he thinks he's going to get away alive just because he has the _Navy_ to back him up–"

"Mister Gerber!" the older of the two lawyers steps right in front of him. "You should stop now before you say something we can't help you with."

"If you can't help then get the fuck out."

Gibbs signals to DiNozzo and the four lawmen leave, not waiting for the butler to open the door.

"GET BACK HERE!" the yell reverberates through the house. Gibbs won't hear it.

x

Out on the porch big enough to hold Gibbs' bullpen in an obscure corner, the four pause to take stock. "Told you," Carpenter reminds them.

"You told us," Gibbs grants.

"That it, boss?" DiNozzo wants to know. The look on the silent Clifford Scott's face telegraphs his opinion that it is.

"No point in talking when there's no one to talk to."

"So what now?"

"Now we reverse Rule 13."

x

A moment later the door behind them opens and a thousand dollar suit steps out with the older lawyer in it. For Gibbs the only uncertainty was which of the mouthpieces it would have been.

"I'm sorry about that, Agents, Detectives."

They can see the man definitely is, though whether the issue is courtesy or how much harder his client has made his job, Gibbs withholds judgment. "What can you tell us about Carol Gerber?" Secondary information isn't good, but when there's no primary he'll take anything over a wasted trip and insert the information this man can give them in its proper place in the puzzle.

"I don't know that there is any connection between Ms. Gerber and your Ensign Cabrera, but you understand I can tell you little about Ms. Gerber."

"Cabrera's record is spotless, Carol Gerber's isn't. We didn't bring her whole rap sheet 'cause our car's not big enough." Normally Gibbs doesn't go in for hyperbole, this time he'll use it to see how far he can trust, or goad, this lawyer. Will he toe the party line, or will his information be useful? As it is, it's useful for Gibbs to let the man know he knows at least some of Carol Gerber's history, and by extension the older generation's.

"Naturally I can't discuss the affairs of my client."

Gibbs suspects that having Steven Gerber as a client is like spending one's life walking a judicial tightrope, hell on one side and a more unpleasant place on the other. But he doesn't have any sympathy. No one's holding a gun to the man's head … or are they?

"What _can _you tell us?"

"Mister Gerber plans to take on the Navy, NCIS and most especially your Ensign Cabrera, and he certainly has enough money and power to do the latter. If there is any proof the man's innocent, I hope he has a good lawyer."

"You were Carol Gerber's lawyer?"

"I was."

Gibbs won't try to dig information out of the man for now; Attorney/Client privilege will get in the way with every step. Best to lock up their information on Carol Gerber that they can get from MPDC and Court records - if any.

It'll also be useful, as a side inquiry, to learn how long Amanda Trieste's record is.


	6. No True Bill

Chapter Six  
>No True Bill<p>

Gibbs and DiNozzo are three feet from the bullpen entrance when Ziva's sharp exclamation almost batters down the cubicle's barrier.

"I do not _believe _it!"

"What've you got?" Gibbs asks, coming around the partition. With that outburst, it had better be the solution to this case.

Ziva doesn't look away from her computer monitor, and if she's surprised by Gibbs' and Tony's arrival, she's too angry to show it. "I knew your American justice system was warped and I suspect at times utterly _useless_, but I did not believe twenty four morons could fit on a single Grand Jury to make such a bonehead decision!"

"What are you talking about?" In a bad mood already from dealing with a bonehead executive and gagged lawyers, usually his favorite kind until today, he won't tolerate emotionally charged mysteries.

"A Grand Jury of his peers – where they found that many perverted kneeheads to sit in one room I do not know–"

"Knuckleheads."

"_DiNozzo_."

"Shutting up, boss." He quickly goes to his desk, out of range.

"Knuckleheads," Ziva grants, too angry to care. "They voted 'No True Bill'. They voted _not_ to indict Thomas Trovillot!"

"_WHAT_?" This near shout from Michelle turns Gibbs to her; she's halfway out of from behind her desk before she sees his angry glare and carefully sits back down.

x

As outraged as Gibbs is by this escalating disruption of the discipline he'd always taken pride in his team for, McGee is relieved. He'd learned about the Grand Jury's decision seconds after arriving at his desk this morning, having also decided that allowing DiNozzo to drag personal information out of him was preferable to revealing what he knew. He's glad to have Ziva take the forefront and not have to be the one to endure irate fallout.

Two weeks ago, immediately after his return with Shav from a blissful honeymoon in Ireland, the women of NCIS and other Military Law Enforcement Agencies had endured intolerable personal assaults in the form of hundreds of photo-manipulated images, the women's faces seamlessly attached to nude bodies, being circulated on the Internet.

NCIS, along with representatives of those other agencies, had determined the ones responsible, captured and sent three of them to Metro PD – evidence is still mounting against the main purveyor – and this is the result.

x

"How can those idiots do such a thing?" Michelle demands, too irate now to pay any attention to Gibbs. Having combated her initial withdrawal, that personal victory is a clear indicator of her distress.

"I received a call from Alyson Gordan in Fraud and have just confirmed it," Ziva declares venomously. "A Grand Jury can, in a month, hear some 60 to 80 cases and decide which ones contain sufficient cause to send the case to a trial."

"I _know_ that," Michelle bites. She had come down from Legal; to be a lawyer had been her first career choice and this madness is–

"A coalition of members within the Grand Jury, which had already voted twenty-one consecutive True Bills, has decided there were too many people being sent to trial and this gaggle has decided that the 'No True Bills' now have to equal the 'True Bills'."

"They can't do that!"

"That is what the Jury Foreman and numerous Court Officials told them, but they are continuing to alternate nonetheless. Since yesterday, and Trovillot's case was presented last evening, fifty percent of all cases that come before them are now being dismissed until some Judge removes the entire group."

"What about Sam Waters or Harry Carter?" Michelle demands.

"They were brought together yesterday on what Assistant District Attorney Gendelman _thought_ was a 'slammed dong'. They are all free."

x

Gibbs considers stopping this but changes his mind. Those people have violated his teammates, now his people deserve to let off some righteous indignation. Maybe he'll turn the lawyer and witch loose upon the alleged jurists.

"What about Patrick DeMarle?" Tony asks. DeMarle had been the Manager at Paradise Publishing's Photo Department, the purveyor of high quality head shots, not only from 'We' Magazine's files but other publications as well. At $50 per photo sold to a vast variety of customers, he'd maintained a very lucrative side business for a formidable number of years. Celebrities, politicians and other public figures were one thing, but he made a serious error in doing it to women who enforce the law for a living.

"He is covered in a separate set of indictments," Ziva answers bitterly, "and MPDC has not yet decided to arrest him until sufficient evidence is in, so he is still under the gun." She sounds like she wants to fire it.

"Well, not a total loss," Tony commiserates. Of course, the loss still stings badly - and Tony never realizes how much his comment isn't appreciated by the women.

x

"Thomas Trovillot is holding a Press Conference outside his home at noon," Ziva continues reading from her monitor, biting down the urge to bite DiNozzo.

"Probably to gloat on the power of Freedom of Speech," DiNozzo gripes, missing for the moment the value of silence, thinking his words are helping his team mates. Trovillot had made a major point of the benefits of that Speech Right from the moment of his capture.

"Is the DA letting them go?" McGee asks sharply.

"'No True Bill', McGee," Gibbs counters. "They walk."

"Well the DA's office should bring them before _another_ Grand Jury. I'm sure the judge would let them."

Gibbs doesn't answer, uncertain how many times someone can be re-brought and for a long time having his doubts of the righteousness or the common sense of the Judicial system or any of its participants. He glances at Palmer, but she's too angry and he's not going to make her speak if she's silent, at least on this. He's heard enough words on the subject. "Back to work, people."

"Gibbs–!" Ziva tries, and is silenced by a deadly glare.

x

"DiNozzo: _Trieste_."

"Amanda Trieste looks as clean as Gerber looks dirty," Tony says crisply, trying his best to get the conversation further away from Trovillot and company. He'd called up the information on their current case and its more flamboyant participant as soon as he reached his desk, anticipating correctly that his boss would come back to his original assignment faster than he was ready for. "No arrests, no warrants, the only thing I could find is a speeding violation she's contesting. The case is due to come up in three weeks."

"She's pretty clean," McGee says, picking up the narrative. He's had more time to evaluate the woman. "Not much to distinguish her aside from the fact that, before Ziva and Michelle brought her in, she called three times demanding information on our progress."

"Something seem odd to you?"

"You mean in that she's called more often in five hours than the family of our victim and is really interested in the details of our investigation? Not much."

Gibbs knows McGee's dismissive attitude is more irony than response to the question. When someone becomes very interested in the details and progress of the case, there's usually a very good - and often very dirty - reason.

"She talk to you?"

"She did." They can tell by his tone that McGee wishes he hadn't taken those calls.

"I know you told her to take a flying leap," Gibbs says, certainly expecting an affirmative answer.

"Not in so many words, but she got less than she was hoping for."

Of that he can be sure. "What's her connection to Gerber?"

"They met in College two years ago, apparently they shared several classes. Now she works as a cashier in Macy's, and has been there for three years. As Tony said, altogether she hasn't had any significant history, at least none that's brought her to Metro's attention. She's a bit character in this novel."

Gibbs decides to let this comment die a lonely and well deserved death. "Palmer, Cabrera."

"Mark Cabrera has not been involved in any legal matters I could find. His record with Metro PD, as well as with the Navy, is clear."

The problem with this case is that their main suspect seems to have no reason to kill Gerber, while there are, conservatively, five hundred other people who do.

"Dig deeper. Was he really in the wrong place at the wrong time, or does he have a motive?"

xxx

When Gibbs walks into Autopsy Ducky pauses in pushing the tray containing the face down body of Carol Gerber into her not-so-final resting place and saves him the trouble of asking. "Cause of Death, Jethro, is a ten inch carving knife driven with superlative accuracy into our young guest's heart."

"Driven by who?"

"By whom," he corrects with a small smile.

"Don't care, Duck."

"The killer's identity, I fear, is more your purview than mine."

"I'm spreading it around today." He glances about the room. "Where's Palmer?"

"I sent him home about an hour ago." Seeing Gibbs' surprise, he elaborates, "my young Deputy contracted a fairly moderate but inconvenient stomach ailment and, since the bulk of our work was done, I decided to relieve him before he was inclined to relieve himself on Ms. Gerber."

"Good call."

"Yes, I thought so."

"So what can you tell me about your 'guest'?"

x

Ducky draws the metal tray out to its limit; Gerber's corpse lies face down, a somewhat uncommon position which does allow Gibbs to see the horizontal wound in her back. "Ms. Gerber was stabbed one time in the back with enough force that there was actually no spatter, the guard on the knife stopped the spurting blood." Mallard pushes the drawer in and closes the door to 107.

"There was no bruising around the wound due to the immediate cessation of blood flow, and since it was a single thrust there was, of course, no cast off. However, if I am correct in that the young lady was involved in the rather frantic activity that passes for dancing in these days, there should have been some blood upon the killer's hand and arm."

He leads Gibbs to the wall display upon which are spread a series of X-ray sheets, and points to the appropriate spot upon a film sheet. "The blade penetrated the young lady's heart nearly dead center, if you'll pardon the reference."

"Good aim."

"I'd say, considering our guest was a moving target seen only in still 'slide' images as it where, that it was superlative aim. The assault came from her right, hence you are very likely seeking a right handed assailant, which I fear will be of little help in narrowing the field of suspects."

"Could she have been stabbed with an inward thrust?"

"While holding her from the front? I doubt it, for there is a slight but leftward angle to the wound, more common when someone standing behind the victim comes in with the right hand. However, I have not seen your suspect so I could only say it's _possible_ that enough force could be employed to produce a wound of this depth. I would consider it unlikely, though. Would you say the Ensign is particularly strong?"

That's something Gibbs isn't ready to call. Certainly as an able bodied Seaman he's fit, but is he strong enough to do the deed as Gibbs envisions it? "I'll have to let you know."  
>"Then I shall be able to let you know."<p>

"He's about 5 10."

Ducky considers this point. "That would not be inconsistent with the wound, which is almost horizontal. It is, of course, also not inconsistent with someone of similar height stabbing the young lady in a forward thrust from behind."

Gibbs actually prefers that scenario, even with the limitations of what the examiner's able to say, but until they find more information it leaves them with one particular problem."So you can't eliminate Cabrera?"

"No."

xxx

Tim is focused upon his assignment so when the telephone beside him rings, he automatically picks it up. "NCIS, Special Agent McGee."

/_Hoigh_, Special Agent McGee,/ the especially enthusiastic woman greets him, /this is Extra Special Agent McGee./

He chuckles; lately she has a different greeting each time she calls and they range from the sublime to the silly. "Hi, hon," he says quietly, his eyes on his partners, cautious that they might hear.

/It came./

He thinks about this announcement, finally gives up. "Came."

/Yes!/

"No, I mean _what _came?"

/Well, looking at this really sexy picture, I could've, but we'll discuss that later./

If anything, this leaves him more mystified, but then: "It _came_!"

/I just said that. Twelve advance copies, and boy, do you take a _sinfully _sexy picture./

x

In March, just a week before their wedding on Saint Patrick's Day, he'd gotten his first pre-sale Commission check from his Publisher for 'Cearbhall's Quest', and he'd arranged with the House that the Advance copies would be shipped to Saint Mary the Virgin Church rather than their dealing with a delivery slip at home and a trip to the Post Office. "How do they look?"

/Sinfully sexy./

"You can't get off that picture, can you?"

/Why should I?/

"_You'd_ better get off and get back to work, McGee," Gibbs announces as he strides into the bullpen, "or the only quest you'll be on is for a new job."

"You–"

/I heard, though how he knew we were talking about Cearbhall I don't know./

"He's Gibbs. Talk to you later."

/Get home fast, á run; dinner will be hot when you walk in./

"What's on the menu?"

/Irish meat and cream pie,/ she whispers and hangs up quickly.

xx

At noon Michelle Palmer is also focused upon her assigned task, that of tracking Mark Cabrera's connection, if any, to Carol Gerber via his legal history – minimal; and hers – vast and long term, and she believes she's found an interesting connection. She prefers this to dwelling upon the idiocy of the Grand Jury in the Trovillot / Waters / Carter debacle.

She looks across the bullpen, ready to make a preliminary report but sees Gibbs isn't at his desk. She saves the information and is about to start compiling it into a written report when her attention is snatched by unexpected words from the plasma screen mounted to her left between Tim's and Special Agent DiNozzo's desks.

"We take you now to a live Press Conference from Galloway Street in Terra Cotta, where Thomas Trovillot, one of three suspects accused in an Internet Pornography case, is about to address the media. Charges were dropped against Trovillot yesterday in a highly controversial Grand Jury decision.

"Trovillot was accused of creating photo-manipulated pornographic images and posting them on the Internet. Photo-manipulations are pictures of real persons, in this case women, merged with nude or otherwise sexually oriented pictures to give the impression that the women whose faces and names were used were the women posing in the photos. What makes this case interesting is that Trovillot is accused of targeting not actresses or celebrities, the most common victims of this practice, but Law Enforcement Officers connected with the Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines - not the people most would want to make enemies of.

"Mr. Trovillot, together with co-defendants Samuel Waters and Harold Carter, escaped prosecution in a surprising move by the Grand Jury which had met last evening to consider indictment. The trio had been arrested two weeks ago but the Grand Jury refused to indict, adopting a pattern of alternating 'True Bills' with 'No True Bills', a decision that has sparked its own investigation into judicial misconduct and a reexamination of all thirty-seven cases brought before this panel.

Meantime, Marie Saunders brings you the report from Mr. Trovillot's home in Terra Cotta in the District's Northwestern quarter."

x

Michelle, irate, stands up to join Ziva, Tim and Agent DiNozzo before the screen as the image changes from the newsroom to Galloway Street outside the home the agents had last seen when they'd arrested Trovillot. The one story house, surrounded by the stereotypical if anachronistic white picket fence, is anything but a haven of Americana. Inside lives a man in his mid-20's, perhaps the most universally detested 'perp' the women of NCIS had ever apprehended.

What had caused the greatest outrage among his many victims isn't only that he'd flooded cyberspace with what was purported to be their nude photos, not only that he had humiliated hundreds and drove some to despair and one to the brink of suicide, but that he did it with no feeling or consideration whatsoever. He'd done it simply because he was bored with the current selection of nude fakes already on the World Wide Web. He had no feeling for, or even against, the women he victimized; they were simply raw materials in a hobby, used to stave off boredom.

When they'd arrested him, with a backup from Army CID Col. Hollis Mann, Trovillot had been utterly smug in his conviction that he had done nothing wrong. He couldn't understand, or rather claimed he couldn't, why the women, or the men that knew them, were outraged. It was a victimless hobby until he became the victim of malicious prosecution.

x

Now Trivillot approaches the microphones set upon a podium at the open gate of his white picket fence, his shoulder length hair fluttering in the breeze but looking even more smug and self-righteous than he had when he'd been dragged out of that house nearly two weeks ago. This time he's washed, long blond hair combed, and he wears clothing somewhat better than the holed tee shirt and decaying jeans he barely wore when the team had arrested him. Pity that the man, or boy, himself is no cleaner inside.

Beside and a little behind him, where he can assure himself of a place on camera, stands his lawyer, looking even more self-congratulatory following his easy 'win'.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. I stand before you today, vindicated in the battle of Freedom of Speech against the forces of Monied Political Dick... tatorship that uses the power of this Police State to strip honest, hardworking Americans of our God-given Right to Free Speech and Freedom of Expression."

"How _dare_ he?" Ziva fumes. "I have studied your laws; they do not exist to support this man's perversions."

"Hush," Tony says tightly, earning a fiery glare.

x

"The American Judicial System has," Trovillot continues so smugly there's barely room for his image on the screen, "in its wisdom, declared me to have committed no crime; though many would _claim_, empty though their specious accusations are, that I violated the rights of others in actions that, quote, 'fly against common decency'.

"In the name of Decency and Morality I thank the Grand Jury for their wisdom and bravery in not bowing to the pressures of the Monied Powers who would trample the Right of Free Speech under their iron boot heels. Indeed, this marks a great day for the People of the United States in that our most basic Liberties are upheld.

"The Secret Police of the NCIS, CID and others, along with nameless forces of Military Political Despotism, have long conspired to tear down Individual Liberty by silencing any who oppose their efforts to control the minds of the People of these United States, and to dispose of any who resist their efforts to enforce Military Tyranny both Domestically and abroad. This Grand Jury decision is a monument to the fact that they cannot endure against those dedicated to Freedom and Truth. We will not be silenced. We will prevail."

"_Prevail_?" Michelle cries. "That bastard _violated_ all of us!" She stabs her finger at the screen. "He should have his _head blown off_!"

_Crack_! A hole appears in Trovillot's forehead, his head jerks back, blood spurts to stain the podium. The camera jerks, a red spot falling upon the lens. Screams fill the air. Blood on the lawyer's face and suit. Chaos fills the screen. The image jumps seemingly in all directions as dozens of people jostle for cover that doesn't exist. The camera steadies moments later to continued bedlam. People run in all directions with continuous shrieks puncturing the air.

"Get this, Scotty!" Saunders' voice exclaims from off camera, she doesn't appear on the screen as the camera turns and looks over the podium at the still body splayed out upon the ground. Blood trickles from a hole in Trovillot's head, spreads wide behind it as gravity drains the gore onto the grass through an undoubtedly large hole. More screaming, more pandemonium, the voice of Marie Saunders trying to explain what no words are needed to explain.

Michelle, having frozen in the first second, as shocked as others, stares at the screen beyond her extended right finger. She looks to her friends on her right, feeling her blood run cold, her finger still raised to the screen like the barrel of her Sig.

"I didn't mean it."


	7. Rule 33

Chapter Seven  
>Rule 33<p>

"I didn't do it!" Michelle Palmer, frozen pointing to the plasma screen, feels foolish that she even has to protest that witchcraft isn't responsible for this, but she's so horrified she has to say something.

"We know," DiNozzo says tightly over the continued madness playing out on the big screen. It seems the news crew can't let go even though screaming witnesses have fled in every direction.

On-site reporter Marie Saunders, in rapid fire exchanges with her anchors in the studio, conveys the bedlam as police, stationed to maintain order during what was expected to be a contentious press conference, must do the impossible - protect those in the dispersing crowd who haven't made it clear but have ducked behind cars and any other illusionary safety from an unknown sniper - before they can hope to begin a search.

When the mob that had massed outside the white picket fence surrounding Thomas Trovillot's faux-suburban style Terra Cotta home has fled, and there's no further indication that any more shots are forthcoming, two minutes have passed since his shocking execution. To the agents who returned to their desks surrounding the plasma screen in NCIS Headquarters, two minutes might as well be two hours. The odds are against apprehending the undoubtedly long-gone shooter.

"What in _Hell _happened?" Ziva wonders from her desk during her rapid reading of the multitude of reports hitting the Internet, and for once Tony isn't interested in a snide come-back. He knows what she means.

"The best timed service of justice," he declares instead, alternating glances between his computer monitor and the non-stop ZNN report on the plasma screen nearly behind him. McGee watches the plasma closely as events unfold and Michelle Palmer, visibly shaken, hasn't said a word since returning to her desk.

"Not our concern anymore," Leroy Jethro Gibbs declares firmly as he strides into the bullpen.

DiNozzo isn't going to question how much Gibbs knows; despite being absent when the events unfolded, DiNozzo is certain the man is fully informed. The outrageous Press Conference, and its stunning dénouement, had undoubtedly been featured on every television screen and most of the computer monitors in the building.

"You have to admit that–"

Gibbs barely slows, picks up the remote control from the edge of DiNozzo's desk and switches off the screen. "You'd better admit that you have something on _our_ case."

x

"Sir, I mean Special Age–" Michelle, slipping back into her former deference at his mood, cuts off even before he can turn a hard look to her, but then rallies under his 'get-on-with-it' glare. "I think I found a connection between Carol Gerber and Ensign Cabrera."

"What is it?"

She turns back to the computer screen, not wanting to admit she's still shaken and trying to hide it in words. She'd found the information before the aborted press conference in Terra Cotta, had started to prepare a written report, but now she can tell the boss instead.

"Not a direct connection, mind you, but two years ago Carol Gerber was appropriating Identities and opening Credit Card accounts, and one of the people she stole the identity of was a Jean Marie Cabrera of Cynthiana, West Virginia. I cross-referenced and Jean Marie is a cousin of Mark."

"What happened in that case?"

"Jean Marie, then 44, had a card opened in her name and Carol Gerber ran up the $5,000 limit. Visa went after Jean Marie. She managed to prove she authorized no such card and got the billing overturned but it took about four months to settle. Her Credit Score took a hit but she managed to get it back together. The case was added to an on-going investigation by Visa that led to Gerber's arrest seventeen months ago on a series of counts. Bail was posted by Steven Gerber, his lawyers still have that multiple plaintiff case in the delaying stage. It hasn't come to trial."

"Little late now," Gibbs concludes the issue.

"Sounds like not much of a reason for murder," DiNozzo opines, seeing no permanent damage.

"Rule 33."

"Of course, boss."

"'There are all sorts of reasons to commit a crime'," McGee quotes. "'They don't have to make sense to us'."

"You've been paying attention," Gibbs says with now grudging approval.

"I'm trying," McGee assures his boss with a half-smug smile.

"Sometimes very," Gibbs retorts, wiping the man's smile away. "What about Gerber's other victims?"

x

"I've identified 43 Identity Theft victims, didn't get to Jean Marie Cabrera so make it 44 confirmed victims. Not everyone keeps a close tab on his or her Credit Score. Of those who were hit I've reached only seven so far, most of whom were taken for an average of $3,000. Gerber seems to have been conservative, not hitting people up for too much too fast. That's why she managed to slip through for so long, a little here and a little there until they built into really significant numbers, and then in most cases she moved on. My impression is that she was a thrill-seeker rather than looking for a big score. Her family's money means she had access to a lot more cash on her own."

"Sounds familiar," Ziva gripes. "We have experienced perps who have not been in it for the money but for the fun, and one has paid for it."

Gibbs decides he could smack her down for bringing up the photo fake issue again but decides not to. Instead, he keeps his focus on McGee. "What about _our _Cabrera? Is there any indication he knew about Gerber scamming his cousin?"

"Er, I don't know."

He intends to find out. "Where's Trieste?"

"Still on ice in I-1 since ten," Michelle assures him. "And if anyone is cold enough to be a glacier, it's her."

"What do you mean?"

"All she cares about is getting Cabrera for killing Gerber. She went so far as to threaten to sue us if we don't."

"Now why does that sound familiar?" DiNozzo asks. Gerber Senior had that same attitude during the aborted interview earlier today.

"McGee, you're with me; Cabrera first, then Trieste. DiNozzo, see what else Ducky has."

Reading Gibbs' expression, DiNozzo can tell Gibbs actually hopes Trieste will be a smart ass during the interview.

xx

Mark Cabrera has already been brought from Holding to Interrogation Two fifteen minutes before Gibbs enters the small room and puts the file folder on the table, takes his place opposite the apprehensive Sailor.

"Sir, please, I know it looks bad but you have to believe I didn't do anything."

"You're right, Ensign," Gibbs assures him, quite unsympathetic. "It looks bad."

"But I didn't do anything. I had no reason to kill the lady."

"Jean Marie Cabrera."

This visibly derails him. A Probie could read it in the flustered man's face. "What?"

Gibbs slides from the closed folder a letter on Washington Federal Bank stationary, rotating it so the man can read it. While he does, Gibbs reads his face and body. "Father's brother's daughter, Jean Marie in Cynthiana, West Virginia. Lost $5,000 in an Identity Theft scheme, credit fouled up, years to sort it out. Sound familiar?"

"No! Well, yes, Jean's my cousin but I haven't heard from her in nearly a year."

"Not good, Ensign; this happened two years ago."

"But wait, what does this have to do with me? I didn't know anything about this."

"You were in communication with her two years ago?"

"So _what_?"

"Carol Gerber stole her ID."

"_What_?"

"The woman you're accused of killing." He's already read enough in the man's manner and expression to raise his doubts – again.

"I didn't kill _anyone_!"

"Did you know about this incident?"

"I heard she was having trouble, yes, but I don't know anything about it."

"Gonna have to do better than that, Ensign. Your records show you were on Leave around the time things were getting bad for your cousin. You shipped back out around the time stress would've really been pouring on the lady, now you're back with a four day pass and Carol Gerber's dead in your arms."

"I had no idea about this!"

"About two million people in West Virginia, half a million in the District and you both end up at the same Night Club. You're asking us to believe this is a coincidence?"

"_Yes_!"

"I don't believe in coincidences."

"Well too _bad_! This _is_."

"You sure you don't want to tell us anything more?"

Cabrera looks at the door, the large mirror, the imposing man seated opposite him. "I want someone to call JAG. I want a lawyer."

xxx

Tony walks into Autopsy, rather relieved to find Ducky alone, seated at his desk making entries into the Autopsy report on Carol Gerber. Not only will that mean that answers will be quickly forthcoming but he doesn't have to deal with the Autopsy gremlin while getting them. He knows from Michelle that Jimmy's gone home early with some kind of bug, so he doesn't bother with any jibes to the man's partner. He doesn't tease behind anyone's back - or in his absence - and lately there are far more things for him to think about.

"Hi, Ducky."

The older man turns, his face alights in a smile. "_Tony_. What may I do about you?"

"Nice one."

"Thank you."

Tony hitches a hip on the side of Ducky's desk, recalling how little the man appreciates it. "Did you hear about Trovillot?"

A few watts go down in the man's expression. Death, even richly deserved in the eyes of certain people, is not a subject for flippancy. "I did indeed. Special Agent Kingsley just left a few minutes ago, she was here about her team's case, another stabbing having very little similarity to your investigation. She provided me with the supposedly good news."

"Well, I can't work up too much grief myself, but I'm here for your report on Carol Gerber."

"I'm almost finished with it," he says, waving a hand over the open file folder, "if you'll stand by another few moments."

"Sure."

Ducky returns to his writing.

x

"Have you heard the other news?"

Ducky glances up, not even long enough to ask "What other news?"

"Well, I hope you're up on your baby delivering skills. They might be needed."

This is enough to pull Mallard's attention far from the paper before him as he turns, meeting DiNozzo's eyes. "Well, my skills are generally utilized for the other end of one's lifetime, Anthony, though I do appreciate the opportunities to come to the assistance of the living. To what do you refer?"

"Well, just that I hear we'll be having _another _McGee running around pretty soon." He can see he's surprised the man, so he gives him the plain news. "Siobhan's pregnant."

"Is she _really_?" Ducky's delighted, but then he reconsiders. "But still, they're just recently back from their honeymoon. That _is _fast."

"I'll say. I figure January."

This is hardly surprising. "Well, I expect so, if they just got confirmation."

"No. _Last _January." The Examiner's expression changes from delight to confusion. "Siobhan's about three months along."

There's no more delight in the man's eyes. "Oh, dear... Are you certain?"

"Straight from the horse's mouth. Or rather fingers." He enjoys the doctor's confused look. "Email."

"Ah. I expect my announcement is somewhere in the bowels of that infernal device in the corner. I shall allow Mr. Palmer to dig it out upon his return. Still, this is distressing - and quite unlike them. I'd go so far as to say quite unlikely if you hadn't... Still, I shall reserve my judgment until I've spoken to the couple. Medically speaking, that is."


	8. Butting Heads

Chapter Eight  
>Butting Heads<p>

Gibbs leaves McGee standing before the one-way mirror that separates Interrogation One from Observation, and has the satisfaction to see Amanda Trieste leap to her feet when he shoves the door open and enters the chamber. By the young woman's eyes and hair she's evidently not slept, and he knows the past hours haven't been kind to her.

"Did you bust him?" she demands. "Cabrera?" she emphasizes at his intentionally vague expression.

"If the evidence shows he's guilty, I will," Gibbs goes to his side of the table as he speaks, knowing this is enough to draw the fiery young woman out.

"Well, what are you _waiting_ for?"

"Sit down, Miss Trieste." He takes his own chair and Tim, on the other side of the one-way mirror, settles back to watch the clash.

x

Gibbs waits, his manner telling her he's not going to proceed until she gives in and realizes who's in charge.

"All _right_," she complies with no good grace, plops down hard into the seat.

"Now, let's take your story from the top."

"Didn't you get it right the first time?"

Rather than be annoyed, Gibbs looks forward to the confrontation. Amanda Trieste represents the kind of smart-ass rabid dog opponent he enjoys smacking down, but this time he'll wait for the end.

He makes her go through last evening's and this early morning's events, pulling her back when she skips over details until he's satisfied he has everything that had actually happened. Rather, what she claims happened; a first week Probie could see the skewed story for what it is. Many of the points he had her back over came out slightly differently and apparently more truthfully as she realized she couldn't bluff a weighted interpretation of events past him. Still, there are several more this to clarify - rather to break down the walls of deception that surround them.

x

"Why did you and Carol Gerber go to 'Shangra-La'? You told both Officer MacDunnaugh and I that you didn't like it there."

"I didn't. Too loud, too dark, too many F'ing jerks."

"Yet you stayed for three hours before Ms. Gerber was killed."

"It's a free country."

"Not according to my accountant," he tells her blandly, not about to let her hide behind that antiquated dodge.

"We wanted to have a good time."

"Plenty of places to have a good time. Music's quieter, food's better – or at least it's there, drinks are cheaper and the clientele's a damn sight better."

"Tell me about it. You don't get Navy bastards stabbing you in the back at the Bel Monte."

"No, there the crimes are all above board and clearly written on the bar tab."

"How do you know so much about clubs?"

"I have an excellent spy network." There, let her worry over that one and how thoroughly she's been watched. His 'network' amounts to one woman and her copiously detailed recollections. "Tell me why you and Gerber chose that place."

"Carol wanted to. She wouldn't leave."

"Why not?"

"Wouldn't tell me. She just wanted to stay. I figure she was waiting for something."

"Do you know what?"

Trieste leans over the table. "Well, it sure as hell wasn't your Navy bastard stabbing her in the back!"

x

"Suppose I told you we know he didn't do it."

"Then you're lying. He did it, everybody saw it."

"You didn't. By the time you got there, it was all over."

"Everyone saw it."

"Saw what?"

"Saw him grab her in a bear hug and ram a knife into her back!"

That's actually what some of the testimonies the other evening had morphed into by the time Gibbs and his team had interviewed the 42 witnesses. Some had said her back was to him, others included the bear hug, others that he'd stepped around her. Gibbs hadn't wasted time picturing that alternative.

"Why did you two stay so long at the club?"

"I just _told_ you! What, are you hard of hearing or do you have Alzheimer's? If so, get someone else in here."

"Eleven hundred and fifty two."

"Huh?"

"That's how many of these interviews I've conducted since joining the NIS. Most of those guys had attitudes and thought they were big and bad. Some of them were, but you're neither, so tell me what you're leaving out."

"I'm not leaving anything out!"

"You called us several times this morning insisting on information about the case, many times more than the family did. That's unusual. When people do unusual things during a murder investigation, they get noticed."

"I have the right to know what you're going to do about my friend and the guy that _murdered_ her!"

"No, you're not family so you don't. How long have you known Carol Gerber?"

"What difference does that make?"

Gibbs gives her what he means to be the tiniest smile she's ever seen. "Humor me."

x

She sits back, arms crossed before her breasts. "Two years."

"Grew pretty close in two years, did you?"

"So?"

"I wonder how close you got. Carol Gerber was into some pretty nasty stuff."

"Like what?"

"Computer fraud, identity theft, embezzlement–"

"Fuck you!"

"Won't change anything. Why all the calls about our progress?"

"Lack of progress, you mean." He lets her stew. "I want to know." He doesn't answer. "She's my friend."

"Know why when someone gets really interested in the details of a case it makes us take notice?"

"_Why_?"

"Usually means you're scared."

"That's ridiculous. Scared of what?"

"You want to know what we've found because there's something you want to hide."

"That's asinine."

"Well, you see, there's a problem. Ensign Cabrera had no reason to kill Carol Gerber, he didn't know her. Of all the people we found in that club, only one person seems to have known her."

"_Who_?"

"You."

x

"You're _insane_! I told you, I was halfway across the room."

"No, you told us Ensign Cabrera stabbed her. But if you were across the room, you couldn't see her get stabbed."

"Oh, I get it. This is a Navy thing. You're protecting that bastard and you want me to change my testimony."

"No, we broke your story already. I just want you to tell us the truth."

"I _did _tell you the truth. He _stabbed _her!"

"And you were seated across the crowded room when you heard the screams."

"Yes."

"After the lights came on."

"YES!"

"Well, you see my problem."

"_What _problem?"

"The lights were flashing, blinding strobes, then the lights went off, pitch black. That's something everybody agrees on. That song is a signature one, the one they play before that particular break; that's another thing the regulars agree on. The lights were off for ten seconds. I think you weren't at the table. I think you were a lot closer, close enough to stab Carol Gerber and then work your way through the blind crowd. Then when the lights came up you turned back, forced your way to the front and found your dead friend."

"You're _lying_!"

"Unfortunately, there's no one who saw anything different. Most of the witnesses ran away, and all who couldn't get out agreed upon a story even if they didn't realize they were doing it."

"No! I told you what happened!"

"Your purse?"

"What about my purse?"

"It's just the right size to hold that knife."

"NO! It was _him_!"

"We're back to the same problem. He had no motive, he didn't know her–"

"YES HE DID!" she screams. "HE WAS MEETING HER! HE TEXTED HER TO MEET HIM!"

x

"What did the text say?" he asks when the reverberation fades. He'll have McGee retrieve the actual exchange later, but grants this is an interesting development. But did it just develop? His gut says there was no text, but McGee can settle the question.

"I don't know, I didn't see it, she wouldn't show me. All I know is that she was meeting someone who was going to offer her some really good shit."

"And what is 'good shit'?" In his time he's heard this translate to everything from marijuana to nuclear warheads."

"Loads of info on deaders no one knows about, people who've disappeared so recently no one knows they're gone. She can get loads of cash or other things, she said, before banks realize they're gone."

She has a lot of information for something she never saw nor was told about. If it gestating behind her eyes and being born here? "And how much did her supplier want for this 'shit'?"

"Ten thousand dollars."

Gibbs holds his opinion on this scheme before he examines this alleged message. The chances of someone having this information to sell were reasonable but Ensign Cabrera, at sea until recently, wouldn't have access to such numbers and information, not unless he had a local partner. The odds against that are increasing, however.

Further, ten thousand may be steep, if the information exists, but Gerber had been averaging four thousand from each victim.

No, it's more likely that message, if they can confirm it exists, was sent to lure Carol Gerber to a dark room so someone could put a knife in her back.

xx

Gibbs and McGee meet in the orange cinderblock corridor. "Have Tony get on to JAG for Cabrera, then pull those cell phone records, see who sent that text."

"Likely the phone'll be a dead end burn phone but I'll check it."

Gibbs doesn't answer; the trick is so common lately he thinks everyone who's ever watched episodes of CSI knows it. Instead, he turns and heads up the corridor.

"Where will you be?" Tim calls.

"With Abby."

"Least she won't scream at you."

xxx

Michelle Palmer closes the Women's Locker Room door, praying she can have a few minutes uninterrupted privacy. She took her break without Agent DiNozzo noticing, managing to slip away with only a brief signal to Ziva, and hopes to get back upstairs from the rear basement before Gibbs returns from his Interviews. She dearly needs these minutes of privacy - actually she needs an hour but considers she'll be lucky if she can avoid being overheard for just ten minutes.

This number is not on her speed-dial, for she'd been determined not to call it. 'Nevertheless, when you're back's in a corner-' "Goddess, please help," she whispers, for it's not one of her Coven sisters whose voice emerges from the tiny speaker.

/Saint Mary the Virgin Church, how may I help you?/ Ellen Meyers' voice comes through the small speaker.

"I- I mean this... What I mean is..." In the back of her mind she knew the call would be picked up by the Secretary, but she hadn't gotten that awareness to the front where it would do her some good. "Is... That is, is Reverend - I mean Mother O'Mallory - I mean _McGee_! In?" She'd thought she'd moved beyond this apprehensive stammering; obviously that was only in her hopes.

/Yes, who may I say is calling?/

"Tim McGee. I mean I'm one of his part - that is I _work _with Tim O'Mal– Oh _Goddess_!" She stabs the red disconnect button hard enough to nearly push it through the unit. Slapping the phone closed, she looks toward the florescent lights. "Goddess, _how _many ways can I _F _up a simple _phone call_?"

She opens the phone, this number _is _in her speed dial; she just hadn't wanted to use it. This call will have a record attached somehow, which is why she'd avoided it. The priest is more discreet, trained in psychology but doesn't keep records, not of certain kinds of conversations. "Gyves, Gyves, where's Gyves? Oh, here it is, under G of all pla–"

The phone rings loudly enough to nearly make her drop it.

x

[O'Mallory, S. Take call?] the screen asks. She had the number, she recalls now, not in speed dial but in her Contact list and in nearly a month she'd forgotten to update it. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, she presses [Yes] if only to stop the ringing. "Hello?"

/Michelle, it's Siobhan. Did you just call?/

"No, I–" '_Stupid_! She's _got _Caller ID. And I stammered enough. That was just a polite way of starting the conversation.' "I mean 'yes'. I didn't call to disturb you, I mean I know you're busy, it's really, that is–"

/Michelle, I'm alone here in the office. Take a deep breath, let it out, relax and tell me what's wrong./

"I - it's stu- no, I mean–"

/Michelle!/

"What?" Siobhan has never snapped at her. She supposes she deserves it.

/Ten words or less, what's wrong?/

She can hear the rest of the question in the woman's tone: 'and do I have to drive out there?' "No. I mean, that is..."

/Five left./

"Jimmy's nightmares are back and driving me _crazy _I'm trying to help but now he's not going to the doctor and I'm trying my best but I was _raped _and can't talk - vent - about it because I'm trying to help him and I - I–"

/Not at all fair./

"I mean I know he needs, he killed someone while I was only-"

/While you were gang raped and tortured./

"But I didn't tell anyone for months, the only one who knew was..." 'was your husband and I made him swear to tell no one.'

x

There's a long pause, then the priest's tone is decisive ... too decisive, for the words she says make Michelle's heart sink.

/I think we've reached the point where I should be counseling you as a couple. Now I know how your lives are, I've already had to keep Tim's dinner hot several times, but I really think that in the coming week I should sit down with the both of you some evening./

"I - that's not what I..."

/What had you thought to do?/

"I don't know."

/Well, what do you want?/

"_I _want to be the one to vent. This morning when I found out he wasn't seeing the Agency psychiatrist and the dreams were back I called him a – well, never mind what I called him, I don't use those words. That is..."

/We three are going to sit down some evening very soon./

"I - I can't..."

/Leave the scheduling to me, I have pull with a lot of powerful people./

"Yes, I mean okay, I mean ... Goodbye." She breaks the call as quickly as she can.

'What have I gotten myself into? Couple's therapy? Like our marriage is falling apart just because he's repressed killing someone and I repressed getting raped seven times... Jimmy's going to be mad when he hears. Will he even _go_? I should've said 'no'. I can handle this on my own. Maybe I can talk Tim into talking Siobhan out of it...'

xxx

The on-air assassination of a former suspect in an Internet pornography case had been covered by a half-dozen television news services and broadcast over as many radio stations, and had subsequently been shown dozens of times, the hot news of the day. ZNN covered the conference and it hit other cable carriers within minutes and then, via Internet News providers, it had reached subscribers all over the United States. Within the hour it had appeared in fifteen Internet News services, You-Tube and uncounted numbers of blogs.

Within two hours the footage, either original or pirated, went viral and the number of hits reached epidemic proportions, attaining figures no one would have previously credited.

Metro PD, in the persons of eight half-bored and increasingly annoyed officers, had been on site to coordinate control of the Press Conference as Thomas Trovillot's self-serving diatribe had built to a fever pitch. It's entirely unexpected dénouement had boosted Police presence to top level mobilization. All that was immediately known, after chaos had been contained and it had become clear no further attacks were forthcoming, was that the shot has come from an elevation across the street.

Directly across from Trovillot's house is a two story private home and, as soon as adequate forces arrived, MPDC descended upon the building in force. Of course, the increase from eight to twenty uniformed officers plus detectives and CS investigators couldn't be immediate, so the cautious advance upon the house had taken place over ten minutes later. No one had been home. The residents had by then been identified as Anthony and Kelly Karnowski, each of whom was ultimately confirmed to be at their respective jobs; Anthony as a motorman on the Red Line and Kelly an Assistant Manager at a Wendy's Restaurant in Georgetown.

While the couple hadn't been considered suspects in Thomas Trovillot's shooting, the unfortunate placement of a ladder against the rear of the house left little doubt as to how the cross-street, downward shot had been fired.

x

Naturally police in an investigation, especially one in its first hours, must be reticent about their findings. Equally naturally, the lack of immediate and full disclosure sparked a claim of cover-up among the most radical of the curious, and that claim spread faster than the initial blast zone of a nuclear bomb.

Everyone who saw the footage of the shooting had seen what he or she wished to see. Some saw a man who had prevailed against the system assassinated for his success and silenced for his convictions while others saw a soulless monster who had escaped the slow wheels of justice only to be removed before he could prey on other innocents, punished for both his crimes and his arrogance. Thousands of others had other interpretations, most falling somewhere within that range, but some observers developed opinions so extreme as to stun the imagination.

Phone calls and tweets and mass e-mailings and IMs and Facebook walls and dozens of other methods of communication made the event the highest searched for item in the country. Google counted its hits by the tens of thousands, while Yahoo's Trending compilation staff ranked it as the record setter in its first hour.

x

Ziva, searching cyberspace for information on her current assignment, responds to a soft 'ping' that alerts her to an inter-department email. She opens the message. It's short but not sweet.

"Michelle," she calls across the bullpen to the woman at the far left desk beyond McGee's vacant one. "Check your email."

When the signal had sounded on Ziva's computer, it had echoed on the other woman's, but Palmer, just back from her break and catching up on her assignment, had made no move to open the incoming message. Now she does so, and Ziva isn't surprised to see her expression sour. Their gazes meet, Michelle shakes her head and her lips move in a silent 'no'.

x

"Tony," McGee says as he enters the bullpen, "Cabrera lawyered up, it's now in JAG's court. Gibbs wants you to pull the phone records for Cabrera and Gerber, look for a text he might have sent her."

McGee hadn't paused at the half-pun and Tony's not in the mood to retrieve it. Even the semi-secret news he'd imparted to Ducky earlier today at his partner's forthcoming distress won't keep his cheer up in light of this new development. "Great. Another close encounter with Faith Coleman. Glad it's you and not me."

"Can't you handle her?"

DiNozzo usually comes up on top with the compulsive woman and has a lot of fun in the duels, but "She's a nightmare in heels."

"Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky," Tim says with not much commiseration, continuing on to his desk.  
>"I'd get lucky if Cabrera were a Marine."<p>

McGee pauses in mid-stride until Ziva, to his left, comes back with "He is hoping for the lovely Major Sarah MacKenzie."

"We'll probably wind up with Bud Roberts," Tony predicts dismally.

"Well, like I said, maybe you'll get lucky," McGee assures him, sitting down. "I hear Harriet Roberts is a lawyer now."

"The only thing worse than dealing with a lawyer is dealing with a lawyer's _wife_ – who's a lawyer."

"Sounds like it should be appended to one of Gibbs' rules. 13A?"

"It's my Number One."


	9. Your Ensign's Not Innocent

Chapter Nine  
>Your Ensign's Not Innocent<p>

After many years it isn't easy for the stunning Forensic Scientist to completely surprise Gibbs anymore, but when he enters her lab this time, carrying a massive cup of 'Caf-Pow!' for her and an equally large coffee cup for himself, she manages to do it without saying a word. In fact, seated at her standalone worktable, she's unaware he's behind her until he's looking over her shoulder, watching her autograph an 8 by 10 glossy color portrait of herself. The image depicts her at her favorite instrument, her 'Major' Mass Spectrometer, and she's signing the image with a flourish. 'All my love, Abby Sciuto'.

"That for me?" he asks when she's removed the black marker from the picture, for his voice at her left ear makes her jump.

"Gibbs! _Hi_! No, this one is." She pulls from the bottom of the deck of a dozen one signed with more affectionate terms.

"Nice. Thanks." His hands full, he doesn't take it so she sets it down on the table beside her. Now he hands her the tall cold red and white cup and gets to what he really wants to ask. "What are you doing?"

"Answering my fan mail."

"Fan mail?" Yes, she really did say it, and her smiling, self-satisfied nod only confirms it. "You get fan mail."

"I do now. Oh, not much, it's not like I was a television star - or am I? In fact, these few are probably the only ones I'll ever be able to respond to. You're looking at the response to a month's worth of letters. It's not like I was really famous, like I was on television or anything. Well, actually, it was because I _was _on television. You know, Tony says if I dyed my hair blonde - and lasered off the tats - I could pass for that singer, you know the one from 'Legally Blonde', Pauley Perrette? I can't see it at all, I'm _way _prettier, but he insists."

This is one segue too many. He needs a large gulp of his coffee before he can deal with the rest of this lunacy. "What are you _doing_?"

"Oh, I got some letters from people who saw me on the Science Channel, you know that 'History of Forensics, 1901 – 2000'?"

"I remember."

"Well, one young women said she was inspired to study Forensics because of my hosting that program and–"

"Do you think you can spend a few moments on NCIS?"

"Sure." Without even a hint that he's disturbed her, she opens a drawer, puts the pictures and marker away in it and turns a saucy smile to him. "What can I do to you, O Silver Fox?"

"Tell me if Ensign Cabrera's innocent or guilty." Gibbs, ignoring her contrived slip, is already as convinced as he can be without physical evidence that the man hadn't known about Gerber's connection with his cousin. Unfortunately, lack of information isn't concrete proof for or against the Ensign.

x

Abby takes a long draught through her straw and tells him: "Your Ensign's not innocent." She moves the 'Caf-Pow' away from his reaching hand. "That is, I can't say he's innocent based on what little evidence I have so far, but I can't say he's guilty. There were no usable fingerprints on the murder weapon."

Gibbs doesn't normally let his thoughts show in his expression, but to her he will. "What you're saying is we have nothing, nothing but forty witnesses and a suspect who may or may not have a motive."

"Normally you'd like that."

"Well, yeah, but this time it stinks. Forty people were standing around the only possible guilty man and my gut is tying itself in knots."

"Wish I knew how to help you."

"What can you tell me?"

"Only one person's blood is on the knife or hilt."

"Let me see his hands."

"Sure." It takes little more than thirty seconds for the crime scene photos to come up as a 'contact sheet', and these include ten images of Ensign Cabrera's hands and sleeves.

"That one." A touch of the control and the backs of the man's hands fill the plasma screen beyond Abby's workstation. "How many times can someone stab a person and get no blood on the back of either hand?"

"Not many. It's easier to mark the back than the palm. Usually when you're holding a knife without a guard–"

"Like a kitchen knife."

"- the blood is yours."

"This one had a guard."

"Sucks, doesn't it?"

x

"So no prints on the handle, no blood but Gerber's, no cuts on Cabrera; answer's pretty obvious."

"Yep," Abby smiles, happy to be able to solve the case. "Suicide."

He needs a second, takes five.

"Who examined Cabrera's hands for microscopic particles of latex?" She'd gotten that test sample to run very early.

"DiNozzo," he tells her, surprised she has to ask.

"_Oh_, well, then the evidence is suspect."

He scowls at her smile. "You've been hanging around Sky too long."

"Come on, Gibbs, she's _fun_. You put two maniacally happy people together in the same apartment and every night's a party. In fact, we had a party two days ago that–"

"Later."

"Okay. Well, to answer your question - which you didn't ask – all the blood on Cabrera's uniform was hers."

"No surprise. He had no cuts, but no one has any idea when the blood got on him, before he held her or after she slipped out of his arms. What do you have?"

"Well, like I said, no usable prints on the knife handle, everything got smeared from impacting with her back. I can't even tell you for sure how many people handled the knife prior to our perp."

x

"You have Cabrera's cell phone?"

"Of course."

"Can you get hold of Gerber's?"

"That's going to take a bit more. Why?"

"Trieste says Cabrera texted Gerber about details on dead people Gerber could use for her Identity Theft scams. Did he send it? Did Gerber ever receive such a text."

"First one's easy. Second might take a bit of wheeling and dealing. My Metro counterpart has that phone. Getting the info out of him, I may have to promise him a date - and maybe a little something-something to spice up the deal. One time he made me ... well, maybe I shouldn't tell you all the adult oriented details. It involved handcuffs, by the way."

Gibbs says nothing, just lets his eyes convey his outrage.

"Oh, he does it all the time when I come begging for something from him."

"That's unethical." He tries to recall the number for the Metro Scientist's boss. He'll quickly put a stop to–

"I know. But it makes our dates so much _fun_. Besides, you should see what hoops I make _him _jump through when he comes crawling."

Gibbs walks out.

xxx

As soon as Gibbs enters the bullpen, DiNozzo halts him en passant. "I spoke to the XO aboard the New York. He had his Comm officer look back in the logs. During the period between when Ensign Cabrera returned from his furlough after his cousin's identity was stolen to last month he logged only 7 ship to shore calls and those only to his girlfriend's number."

"I spoke to the girlfriend," Ziva says. "She does not know the name Jean Marie Cabrera. While she was reluctant to reveal the content of their discussions," no one is surprised, "she did indicate that the subjects were not any of Mark Cabrera's relations – other than with her."

Everything is looking better for Cabrera, but Gibbs is still not going to release him. There are still too many reasons to have the Ensign remain a guest of NCIS.

He doesn't reach his desk before his cell phone rings. He snatches the unit from his pocket and flips it open. "Yeah, it's Gibbs."

/You owe me a dinner,/ Abby tells him.

"Any time, but why?"

/Because Gerber _did _receive a text but Cabrera didn't send it. Pete Morris says Gerber's text came from an Internet Café on 7th NW, told her to meet at Shangri-La, correct spelling, to buy 20 names and details, price $2,000. But Metro followed up, no ID on the sender - he wiped the history - and fingerprints are a bust at a café, but Metro flashed a picture of our Ensign and it was _not _Cabrera/

"Good work, Abs." He's impressed she'd gotten the information so rapidly. "Hope you didn't have to promise too much."

/Don't worry, Gibbs, I'm a big girl, I can handle it./

"So then why do I owe you a dinner?"

/Because, Gibbs, I'm hungry./

This time she's the one who breaks the connection.

x

"Boss?" McGee calls as soon as he closes the phone, "there were no calls or texts from Ensign Cabrera's number to Carol Gerber's cell."

"I know."

"Then why did you–?"

"Now I'm sure."

"So you think he's innocent?"

"Looking that way, but I'm not ready to sign off on it. I don't want him walking the streets with Gerber hunting for bear. He goes straight from Holding to the New York."

"Actually you don't have to worry about Gerber gunning for Cabrera. That's what I wanted to tell you."

"Why's that?"

"He's on his way here, gunning for you." From the expression on his boss' face, McGee knows Gibbs is looking forward to the shootout.

xx

It doesn't take long. Gibbs is compiling information on his computer, thinking that if he lists the details of the case in outline form the muddled mess will start to make sense, when his phone rings. He answers with his usual brevity, only to be told by front door Security that a Mr. Steven Gerber, together with three lawyers, is here to see him.

"I'm moving up; last time it was only two. Have them escorted to Operations."

When the elevator bell rings a minute later, it sounds so much like the start of the next round that Gibbs figuratively cracks his knuckles, ready whether it be bare knuckles or gloves.

Four suits enter the bullpen, and each of them looks to cost a collective week's pay for the team. Gibbs and his team, however, are used to military frippery that puts these to shame and they have yet to be impressed by any of it.

"Agent Gibbs, have you arrested my daughter's murderer yet?" Steven Gerber, at the head of the diamond, demands.

"Still gathering information, Mr. Gerber. For instance, what do you know ab–?"

"What do you mean 'gathering information'? You know who did it, those lackeys at that strip club even said you took the prisoner into custody."

Gibbs wonders what the lackeys will think of Shangra-La being deemed a 'strip club', though he has personal suspicions of what does go on there in the dark, but "Ensign Cabrera didn't kill your daughter, sir."

"Of course he did! You had a room full of witnesses!"

Gibbs tries to understand, and to extend that understanding; the man is grieving but "Mister Gerber, I understand how you feel, I really do." Where'd those words come from? He's obviously been forced to sit through one too many of Shepherd's programs. "But no matter what it looks like to you, Mark Cabrera did not–"

"Oh, for God's sake, if you can't do your job I'll bring in the police. Metro Homicide will get a confession out of the bastard!"

Gibbs could tell Gerber how NCIS, a Federal Agency, tops the Police; he could tell him that evidence is mounting in favor of another - any other, but before he can one of the dark suits attempts to break in. "Mister Gerber, sir, you must understand that–"

Gerber glances back over his right shoulder, his tone as harsh as the Grim Reaper's scythe; "Keep to what I pay you to do." To Gibbs he says "I want all the information on your investigation. _Now_."

x

Gibbs decides he's been patient enough to put in with McGee's wife for canonization. Time for the gloves to come off. "You don't walk in here and demand information. Here _we _ask the questions and _you _give the answers. If you want to help find who killed your daughter then lose the baggage, _sit down_ and start answering my questions!"

"You've had long enough to conduct an investigation. Jeffries!"

The speared lawyer evidently wishes he were elsewhere – such as Outer Mongolia. "Mister Gerber, you must understand that this–"

"_Just do it_!"

Reluctantly - does he feel like a fool or worse? - the man reaches into his jacket pocket and withdraws a folded paper, hands it to Gibbs.

When Gibbs opens it, he wonders what sort of Mad Hatter's Tea Party he's crossed into. Silently he reads the paper, does so a second time to make sure the words are actually there. It's no wonder the lawyer didn't want to hand it over; he'd feel like a fool if he even considered this idocy.

"This is a Subpoena for all our evidence, citing the 'Freedom of Information Act'?" He looks up at the man, not bothering to hide the incredulity he feels out of his tone and expression. He now knows very well what the Jeffries had been about to say. To their credit, the other two lawyers have the good grace to be uncomfortable as well. Maybe his estimation of lawyers does deserve to be upgraded; but then again, the men are here.

He hands the paper back to Jeffries. "File this with our Legal Specialist." He points to Michelle Palmer, who leaves her desk with a wooden expression, evidently fearing that if she were to relax enough to crack a smile she'd fall to the carpet in hysterics. She takes the paper, returns to her desk and makes a show of reading it. "We'll get back to you on that," Gibbs tells the lawyer.

x

"In the meantime," he says to Gerber, dropping all civility from his tone, "your daughter was involved in internet fraud, identity theft, credit card theft; she was an execution waiting to happen. One of her victims did her and I want to know what you know so we can track down who did kill her!"

"How dare you–?"

"You bailed her out of every scrape she's ever gotten into. She embezzled from _you_ and you looked the other way. You knew this was coming and I expect you have a long list of potential executioners and you have some reason for choosing the only man your daughter _didn't _know to scam as the one to blame. Who is it? Who don't you want us to know about?"

The furious swing is telegraphed so far Gibbs hardly has reason to defend himself against it. He shifts left, grabs Gerber and just gives enough of a pull so the man stumbles past him, toppling to the carpet. DiNozzo and McGee are out into the well to assist in defending their boss – as if he were to need it – but it's to the three lawyers that Gibbs commands "Get him out of this building."

By the time Gerber is halfway to his feet he's surrounded by his Aides who firmly, and with great embarrassment, bustle him out the rear of the bullpen and in a circuitous course back to the elevator. Gibbs is just glad Gerber doesn't resort to rants as he's hustled out of the division.

When the elevator whisks them away, Gibbs heads back to his desk, the motion a signal to the others to get back to work.


	10. Once More Unto the Breach

Chapter Ten  
>Once More Unto the Breach<p>

Hours later Abby Sciuto steps out of her coffin room and turns to her roommate who lays upon the black leather sofa, watching television. "Wanna go out?"

She's been invited to an NCIS party and definitely doesn't want to go, but neither does she want to stay home, preferring to go out for a night on the town rather than submit herself to answering the insane invitation. She's had a full day of Science, and though it's her greatest love, even over 'Caf-Pow!', she needs to get out and she doesn't want to go alone.

"Sure. Where to?" Sammy doesn't even glance at the clock; for two women seemingly hard-wired for spontaneity, such an act would be too plebian, so neither of them know nor care that it's nearing 2300.

"Little place I heard of, Shangra-La." She won't tell Sammy that it's a Crime Scene, a call on her cell phone confirmed, though she couldn't hear the voice on the other end, that the club's reopened, though how it did so soon she neither knows nor cares. After a day of working blind she wants to see it and the relation of every piece of evidence to the whole. There are several other reasons for going there; she hasn't seen every club in the city and not for lack of trying, and Gibbs didn't actually _say_ she couldn't visit it. She just hadn't mentioned it.

"_Great_!" Sammy virtually leaps from the couch, landing on her bare feet on the carpet as though a gymnast executing a dismount from the parallel bars. Sammy Sky's very existence is virtually a perennial party, her joie de vivre beyond legendary to her friends, so this level of enthusiasm is downright mundane.

"Get dressed."

"How?" The blonde woman starts opening her light blue pajamas.

"Nouveau slutty," Abby decides with an expressive smile.

"_Cool_," Sammy pulls the top from her shoulders as she heads for the bedroom.

"Bring ear plugs."

This halts her in mid-stride and she turns, trying to decipher the advice.

xxx

Sammy's choice of Nouveau slutty is a deeply plunging V scarlet mini-dress that compliments her long blonde hair and complexion and that valiantly tries – and utterly fails – to be long enough down her thighs to be decent while revealing entirely too much of the well endowed young woman's cleavage. She sits with her equally ebullient friend at a two foot wide black table in a black room surrounded by black garbed dancing revelers who strive equally valiantly to shake off various limbs and valiantly strains to work out what Abby, clad in her Goth-est black outfit with equally daring neckline, is saying. She's grateful for the earplug advice, for even through them the noise of the band across the long room is akin to an auditory mugging.

'Saying' is somewhat generous, for even if they weren't protected by ear plugs from the audio pummeling by heavyweight loudspeakers, Abby doesn't even try to shout, using instead a modified version of Sign to communicate her meaning. Since Sammy doesn't have even a rudimentary knowledge of the language, Abby limits herself to expressive gestures and the soon-to-be physician responds with a stylus on the lighted screen of her Ipaq.

The small screen is actually the best source of light in the black room, the rest of the half-hearted attempts at illumination coming from the single candle at each small table surrounding the dance floor. The candles run the length of the bar and the dim spotlights that hang from the black ceiling partially illuminate occasional small points eight inches wide on the dance floor.

'Tell me again why we're here?" Sammy writes on her lighted pad, illustrating the appeal with begging artwork. Abby responds with flourishing gestures Sammy interprets have something to do with 'fun'. Sammy decides not to write that she'd have more fun at 'Taiwan On'. At least there, if she's going to be tied down and spanked or perhaps whipped, it's because she's asked to be. She normally keeps certain sides of her life private and discreet - only Agent Gibbs knows she's a member - but after tonight she resolves to introduce Abby to that club at her first opportunity.

x

Actually, Abby has other reasons for being here where liquor flows like water and the noise batters thought right out of her brain, but its something she can't communicate to Sammy. She has enough trouble believing it herself.

Just before she'd left NCIS Headquarters this evening, she'd run into Tony DiNozzo who'd given her the most appalling, shocking and incredible news. Tim McGee, the ultimate Webelos Scout and as much a rock in her world as Gibbs - though she'd never tell Gibbs - is going to be a father.

Now normally that would be a Cause Celeb, except that he and Siobhan got married just last month, Saint Patrick's Day, March 17 to be exact, and are going to be parents in _October_!

This news ranks as as much of a shock as when she'd first learned McGee had popped the question, but this is nowhere nearly as pleasant.

Siobhan, recovering from a series of merciless assaults inflicted during her captivity in the first days of January, had declared she was going to Ireland for a sabbatical but had instead hid out in Tim's apartment while her wounds healed. It's a secret known only to their closest friends.

But it's obvious he didn't share with them the secret of what _he'd _done while the helpless woman was hiding out in his apartment!

Abby hopes she doesn't see Tim while in the mood she's in right now; the child will grow up half an orphan.

x

"_**WE'RE GONNA TAKE A LITTLE BREAK NOW**_," thunders through the room hard enough to nearly shake some fixtures loose. Abby thinks the candle on their small table cringed and almost went out.

'Thank GOD!' Sammy mouths emphatically, pulling the earplugs from her ears with a sigh of immense relief. For a moment, as her ears recover, she's not entirely sure she isn't already deaf until Abby speaks.

"What's wrong?" Abby grin, thrusting away the anger that'd been brewing in her. This music may be a bit louder than she's used to but it's not bad.

"Oh, my virgin _ears_," Sammy says, covering them protectively until she's sure the sensitive instruments have recovered and she can address her smiling friend. "Tomorrow we're going to 'Taiwan On'."

"I tried to get in there once, about a year ago," she says, giving way to more pleasant thoughts to short-circuit her outrage lest her impish friend get the story out of her. "It's Invitation Only. You've gotta be a member."

"I'm a member. I'm inviting you."

"_Really_?" She hadn't thought of her petite friend would frequent such a club.

"Really." 'And when I _get_ you there…' Sammy promises herself. She's strictly Sub, but for this occasion she'd Switch, if only to– "_CHERRY_!" she cries and leaps from her seat so quickly Abby nearly jumps out of hers. She grabs a red haired woman passing on the way to the corner rest rooms.

"Sammy! Hey! What're you doing here?" the buxom woman, who's about as tall as Abby, exclaims as they hug.

"I'm here with my friend. Let me introduce you." Sammy half-turns in the embrace toward Abby, "Cherry, this is Abby. Abby Sciuto, this is my bestest friend in DC, Cherry Kane."

"Good to meet you," Abby says, liberated by the enthusiasm and hugging the woman after Sammy clears the way.

"You too," Cherry says when they draw back.

x

"Cherry's an advocate with Crossroads, that's where we met. It's DC's foremost LGBTS Advocacy Group."

"S?" Abby is familiar with the Lesbian Gay Bi-Sexual Transgender movement, Sammy's in the B group, but not with the extra letter.

"Straight," Cherry answers and Abby realizes the answer had been fairly obvious. "We try to keep the discussion open; can't do that without all sides being on board."

"Amen. How's that going for you?"

"'Bout as well as you'd expect."

"Bummer."

"Yeah." Cherry turns to Sammy. "Didn't know this was your thing."

Sammy cocks her thumb over her shoulder at Abby with a grin. "She made me come. I'm getting her back tomorrow, though; she'll be my partner at Taiwan On."

"Ah. Partner. Sorry. I didn't know." She moves an inch from Sammy, evidently assuming she's being thought of as 'poaching'. "I thought after Karen–"

"Oh!" Abby exclaims, "no, not that, not at all, no, I'm–" She could do without Sammy giggling over her too-obvious distress. "I'm definitely S."

"Don't let her fool you," Sammy counters. "We're so definitely living together."

Cherry looks from one to the other, confusion bright on her face.

"_Darn it, Sammy_!"

"No, seriously," Sammy says to her friend, her grin not quite under control. "After Karen got killed I couldn't live at my old place anymore. Abby was nice enough to take me in until I could save up enough for a couple months rent and security. She's cool. 'S', but cool."

"Okay," Cherry says, grateful to catch up.

It's clear from Kane's expression that she doesn't intend to ask any questions, something Abby is grateful for.

x

"OH – wait!" Sammy exclaims, turning to Abby. "I forgot, I have something for you." Abby's somewhat apprehensive about what this could be. "No, seriously, I picked something up for you the other day and it's been sitting in my purse ever since." She opens the scarlet bag and starts rummaging about in it. Between the dim light and the depth of the bag, it's a daunting task, so Cherry reaches over to the nearest table and picks up its glass enclosed candle, holding it over the bag. "Thanks." She searches further, finally pushes enough things to the side to reach the bottom. "Here it is."

Cherry replaces the candle when Sammy pulls out something so small her hand obscures it and she hands it to Abby, who turns the metal pin in her hand. It's rectangular, with a clutch pin in the back, and on the inch long metal rectangle she can make out the words 'STRAIGHT' and, in smaller letters under it, 'but not narrow'.

"Thanks."

"I figured you'd like it. It'll save on confusion."

"Love it." Abby puts it on just at the edge of her black leather neckline. Away from candlelight it can't be read at all, appearing just a light colored metal rectangle over the black.

"Say, listen," Cherry says, "if you're not completely set on 'Taiwan On', why not come to 'Sodom and Gomorrah' tomorrow? We're gonna have a wicked time there, open all night. You'll have a blast." She slips an invitation coupon out of her back pocket and hands it to Sammy."

"Thanks," she squints to make out the picture and words in the darkness. "Maybe we will." She glances at Abby "Getting tied up can get a bit old if I'm not getting raped too."

She giggles delightedly at Abby's stunned expression.

x

"Look," Cherry says, "can we walk and talk? I was just heading for the–"

"Oh!" Abby exclaims, "sure." She gathers her black drawstring bag from the table and the trio continues on to the corner of the huge room. There's already one woman waiting outside the door; but she exchanges places with a not quite dressed woman as they reach the door, leaving the trio alone.

"Abby and I used to work together at NCIS at the Navy Yard," Sammy explains to her friend while they wait.

"Oh, yeah, the Medical Examiner thingy."

"Yeah."

"Well, you've always been a cut-up."

Both woman groan.

"SO!" Abby says sharply, determined to clear the air of that horrible quip, "how go things with your Advocacy group?"

"Not well. Marriage may be legal but when you come down to it that's really the first step. Insurance, taxes, and the minute you cross into Virginia or Maryland you're not legal anymore. I feel like I spend more time on the Hill than some politicians and get less done than any of _them_, which is pretty pathetic." There's undisguised bitterness in Cherry's voice.

"We're muddled down with bills over marriage on the Federal level - I should live that long - and AIDS and education and medical coverage and that damned 'Don't ask don't tell', and every time it looks like we might actually get something on the floor it gets tagged with riders about corn and highways, or simply killed because no one anywhere wants to support it because there _are_ no gays or lesbians in the good old U.S. of A, at least so the good old South says. Every time we try to get a Right or make a point someone scuttles it, and people I _know_ are supporters or should be in the forefront are so deep in the closet it's pretty much a waste of time even talking to _them_."

"Never been in the closet myself," Sammy says, mostly to cool Cherry's fire.

"I _know_," Abby concurs. Sammy had been open with her from her second day at NCIS. She doesn't involve Abby in her activities, knowing she's very straight, but her position has always been very firm; she is who she is and it's nobody's damn business what guy _or_ girl she dates.

"No," Sammy reconsiders a moment later, "I take that back. I _was_ in the closet once."

"Hey?"

She grins, giving Cherry a fiery look. "You haven't _lived_ until you've been in a five by five closet with another girl and two guys, all bi."

xx

The ladies' room – the sign says 'Bitches' to distinguish it from 'Bastards' – is eye-searing, not from any flaw but from the intense red light that suffuses it, turning everything slightly varying shades of bright scarlet. "_Whoa_," Abby exclaims, for while the exposed flesh on their faces and bodies turn bright red and the light shines off the leather accents of her Goth dress, Sammy's scarlet mini-dress glows brightly enough to hurt eyes, gleaming under the Kryptonian sun.

"Kind of sexy, hon," Cherry says.

"You too," Sammy says appreciatively, suspecting her friend is unaware that under the light her mane of red hair glows.

Abby, slightly discomforted by the tones underscoring the women's voices, turns toward the room's only enclosed stall. "Well, I see how this place treats its 'bitches'," she says sharply. The chamber is easily big enough for three stalls, but only one seems to have ever been considered. That and the sink in the far right corner constitute the full amenities offered by the alleged Utopia.

"You can go first," Cherry offers, her eyes flickering for an instant to Sammy's décolletage, the red flushed flesh not obscured by the plunging V. Sammy, though standing 5-2 in bare feet, can share bras with Abby.

Abby's not about to decline the offer, for she read in the woman's eyes that Cherry is considering Sammy's story about the closet, but before she gets the door closed she sees the pair draw together in a hug and doesn't miss the discreet flash of tongue that leads the kiss.

x

Abby, after finishing – does everything in this place, even the flushing, have to be deafeningly loud? – unlocks the door with an especially sharp snap. But when she opens the portal the pair await her as patient and sedate as though they had never considered doing what she'd heard. "Next," she calls unnecessarily, her smile barely contained as she turns toward the sink – and freezes.

Cherry, a step closer, also stops and wonders why Abby stands, one hand on the door, staring at the fixture in the right corner. "Abby?" She's not entirely sure this isn't uncommon behavior for the Goth woman.

Abby doesn't look at her, she instead crosses the room and kneels on one knee beside the sink, pulls open the drawstrings of her black bag, roots about in it and pulls out a specimen swab. The long plastic wand is topped with a cotton tip which is itself covered by a plastic device, the top of which Abby pops up. She pushes the rod, exposing the cotton and puts it to the side of the sink, reverse twisting it to gather particles of a dried vertical smear onto the cotton.

Ignoring the women - Cherry's bewildered while Sammy looks on in barely contained anticipation - Abby pulls a small bottle from her purse, twists it open to expose a droplet dispenser and drips two drops of clear liquid onto the cotton.

The reaction is immediate. The dark stain turns bright scarlet under the intense red lighting. She then draws the stained cotton back into the protective plastic cover and snaps it closed, twists the bottle closed and puts them back in her bag. Then she pulls out a fresh swab stick, extends it and collects another sample.

x

"Abby," Sammy says as her friend works, "sometimes I may try to freak you out but you are freaking _me_ out. Who carries a Forensic kit in her purse?"

Abby looks up with a self-satisfied smile. "I do." She puts the second swab into her bag, draws it closed.

"What is that?" Cherry asks, not sure if she'd rather be in Nebraska.

"Blood."

"You recognized blood in _this_ light?" She can't be sure about the color of anything, and she's less comfortable with how well Sammy takes this in stride.

"About a day old," Abby assures her, having absolutely no doubt about the freshness, or the lack thereof.

"_Why_ are you collecting _blood_ in a _ladies_ _room_?"

Though Abby answers the appalled woman's question, it's Sammy she looks at. "Because if I'm right, Gibbs' case just went south."


	11. Forget Your Investigation

Chapter Eleven  
>Forget Your Investigation<p>

Leroy Jethro Gibbs stalks into the Forensics Lab at 0609, large coffee container in one hand and a larger 'Caf-Pow!' cup in the other. His alarm had gone off as usual at 0500 and his cell phone had yelled for him at 0500.25; it had been Abby with a liquid breakfast request and a more urgent request for him to hit Warp 9 in getting to the Navy Yard. "What've you got, Abs?"

He'd hit warp 10 but she gives him her characteristic 33.3 record on a 45 turntable. "A double earache, an over-curious roommate, a freaked-out new friend, I hope – not that she's freaked out but that she's a new friend; an invitation to a Members-only club and an exact, beautiful and precise match on a sample of AB Negative blood I've spent the entire morning matching. It's Carol Gerber's. And _guess _where I found it!"

"Abby."

Her shoulders slump heavily. "There really _isn't_ any foreplay with you." She snatches the white and red container from him and takes a mighty draught. "Oh, I _needed_ that."

"Where'd you find the blood?"

"In the ladies' room at Shangra-La. You know, they really ought to learn to spell."

This morning's going too fast. "What were you doing in the ladies' room?" He immediately regrets the question and doesn't appreciate Abby's smirk. "_Why_ were you at Shangra-La?"

"I wanted to see the Crime Scene, and you're darn lucky I did. I'm thinking about doing a paper on optical cognition of dried blood in a red-shifted environment. Don't ask. But while everyone in Metro _and_ NCIS was looking at the dance floor, the office and the blood on Ensign Cabrera's hands, none of you guys looked in the ladies' room. I found _this_," she holds up the stained and tested, bright red swab before he can protest, "dripped onto the side of the sink when Carol Gerber's killer washed _her_ hands."

x

"There were a lot of people in the dance floor," he protests, never being one to take any evidence at first glance - it must prove it's evidence. "Could this be from someone who touched the body and then went running to the bathroom?"

"No, Gibbs, the mark was too big, and once Sammy and I knew what to–"

"Stop. You took Samantha Sky to a Crime Scene?"

"It's not her first one. In fact, counting the Hampton Arms, she's been to over a dozen since she became Ducky's Assistant."

"Temporary assistant."

"Give it time, Gibbs."

x

He doesn't want to pursue it; the young woman does know Forensic protocol, and besides, Abby was there to supervise. "Okay, what did you find?"

"Two other blood droplets on the somewhat disgustingly dirty bathroom floor, whereby I was able to determine our perpess–"

"Perpess?"

"Don't interrupt, I'm on a roll."

If anyone else in NCIS had dared to say that... "Okay."

"Anyhow, our perpett," she catches his look, though he says nothing. "It pays to broaden your vocabulary."

"Been hanging around DiNozzo too long."

"Tony is–"

"What did you find?"

"I found our perpeta was moving about four miles an hour – that's a fast walk – while dripping blood. They maybe mopped up outside but the ladies room hasn't seen a mop since the linoleum was laid and you couldn't _pay _me to go into the men's room; but the blood on the floor was Gerber's, as was that on the side of the sink."

"What about the perper?"

"You're not convinced it's a woman."

"Ladies room is closer."

"Good point. Okay, the perpetter washed _hir _hands and still high-tailed it before anyone had the wherewithal to shut the doors to the club."

He ignores the misused term, knowing she'd used it intentionally. "Guy at the door said the first bunch stampeded out before he knew anything was wrong, then it trickled down to a couple at a time, any one of which could've been our perp."

"Or perpess."

xxx

While there's no conclusive proof that the murderer of Carol Gerber was female, it does provide an interesting new direction for the case, perhaps the very one needed. The suspect list still includes Trieste but there are a whole lot of other possibilities.

The investigation of those possibilities takes Gibbs and his team the majority of the day - there are simply too many subjects to track when just consideration of Gerber's Identity Theft victims brings the number of subjects with motive to over 500. A five way split on those names alone left each agent with a Herculean task.

It's made infinitely harder, however, at 1400.

x

"BOSS!" McGee exclaims, but when Gibbs glances up from the paper before him he sees that his whole team is disconcerted, and in the same moment he sees that the several computer monitors on his own desk blacken. McGee pushes his chair aside and crawls under his desk. Rising, Gibbs sees over the partition behind him that other teams throughout the huge Operations Division are similarly encumbered. Their own computer specialists are checking systems while the others wait impatiently for answers.

"Computers are on," McGee reports, projecting his voice to the other teams as well. "Drives are active but no output."

"Virus?" SA Ann Rogers speculates from the far end of the room, turning to the sound of McGee's voice. Though she can't see him she's ready to coordinate repair operations.

McGee comes up from behind his desk holding a laptop he's extracted from a drawer. He turns it on and fishes out some wires, using them to connect the small computer with the big one. "Running diagnostic," he says a few seconds later.

"I can save you the trouble, Agent McGee," Director Jennifer Shepherd announces as she makes the turn off the MTAC platform stairs, descending the last steps to the Operations level. All eyes track to her and the two dark suited men that follow her.

"Don't look now, folks," DiNozzo announces, "but the I's of F-B-exas are upon us."

"That'll be all, Agent DiNozzo," Shepherd warns, leading FBI Agents Rick Sachs and Thomas Malvasta into Operations. Sachs is too familiar to be remarkable; Malvasta is a tough looking man of 35 whose belligerent though unforgiving eyes say he's spent too much time Undercover on some Mafia Task Force. "Effective immediately," Shepherd announces, sounding more like she'd rather volunteer for an unnecessary root canal, "by order of the Department of Justice, all NCIS operations are suspended."

x

Gibbs is out of his seat immediately, ready to go toe-to-toe with the men but before he can reach them DiNozzo, in an effort to moderate the tension stuffing the room, addresses the black man. "Agent Sachs, my last and rearmost F.B.I-nemy."

"Now DiNozzo, not still nursing a grudge over a little jail time, are you?" It's been some time since Chip Sterling had tried to frame him for a sadistic murder, but neither man has forgotten the flavor of their first encounter.

"What are you doing here, Sachs?" Gibbs demands, virtually nose to nose with the dark agent. "We're in the middle of an investigation."

"Forget your investigation," Sachs tells him. "The Bureau is seizing all your records during _our_ investigation into which of you took out Thomas Trovillot."

Gibbs' tone drops to a deadly monotone, one his team knows on hearing that it's a good idea to back away from. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Sachs, however, has no such self-preservation sense. "Someone shot Thomas Trovillot in front of his house, right in the middle of a live Press Con–"

"I _know _someone shot him!" Gibbs abandons the deadly monotone to release the fire searing him. "I saw the tape."

"Well, considering NCIS' investigation into all your female agents being photo-manipulated on the web with a couple hundred _nude_ shots - and then your case going south when your Chief Suspect – who pretty much confessed, by the way – walked off on a free pass and then someone sniped him on live T.V., where were you yesterday at noon?"

"_That's enough_!" Shepherd cuts in viciously. She may not be able to operate effectively against this onslaught of officious pissing - _yet _- but she'll be damned if she'll let these men, and the 23 others invading her headquarters, insult her people. "You may have a 'job' to do," her tone says very clearly her opinion of that job, "but you will keep this on a professional level." 'Until I can muster enough backing from the Hill to throw you out on your ass.'

x

"All right," Sachs complies. "Director, we require that all your agents be sequestered during our Investigation. Have you facilities large enough?"

"The garage," she says tightly.

Sachs turns to his partner. "Escort these men and women to the garage." He doesn't believe anyone will be stupid enough to try to leave from there.

None of the agents move; those who stand and watch the drama sit down at their stations. Sachs turns to Shepherd. "With your permission, Director."

She waits a measured ten seconds before saying generally "Shut down your operations and follow this ... gentleman."

xx

The garage is normally considered spacious, taking up a percentage of the building's footprint not devoted to Abby's labs, though it must share said space with the Evidence Holding cage; so when 21 Field Agents and a greater number of Headquarters staff are sequestered in the vehicle and evidence filled chamber by over a dozen FBI agents, space quickly becomes tight.

Certainly no one is permitted to expand the crowd into the Evidence Cage, a black suited FBI agent being positioned to enforce that restriction, so the Field Agents generally congregate in one sector and the other Headquarters staff gravitate by respective specialty into their respective zones.

Not even Ducky and Jimmy are excluded from the crowd. Pulled from Autopsy, the Examiners are not considered suspects in the precision shooting but are supposedly contained here to prevent any possible tampering with records.

Two anonymous black suited men guard the elevator; though with the requirement that an Agent submit first to an Iris scan, their presence is so superfluous that everyone ignores them.

Expressions range from closed and masked to fiery, with frustrated rage most keenly expressed in the person of Abby Sciuto. Normally the most ebullient person in the building, she's capable of equally spectacular displays of outrage and now she withholds nothing. She hangs close to Gibbs, never moving far from where he stands, as though he were cool water to her fire.

It would be more effective if he too were not also burning with frustration. The FBI is making some grandstand play and interfering with too many man-hours of work.

The only person notably absent is Director Jennifer Shepherd. She's presently 'conferring' with Special Agent Rick Sachs in her fourth floor office.

x

"Abs, what've you got?" Gibbs asks the woman orbiting him like a comet with an erratically trailing fiery tail.

"I have who knows how many High School Science dropouts invading the sanctity of my lab, tinkering with–"

"Abby."

She swallows it down. It has an obviously rancid taste. "I'm sorry, Gibbs, I might have had something by now if I hadn't been _invaded_, but right this minute I don't have a thing new."

"We all feel the same way, Abs," he assures her, meeting the eyes of many of his colleagues.

"But what's going on? They can't think we did anything to Trovillot. They can't think _I _did. There's Forensic evidence and I wouldn't leave any."

"I don't know," he tells her, wishing she wouldn't say such things with eyes and ears on them. "FBI's playing a new version of 'turf war', but–" he cuts off as the elevator doors slide open and Rick Sachs leads two crisp black suits into the too-crowded chamber.

x

Gibbs stalks to within an inch of the trench-coated man. "Where's Fornell?" he demands, his glare hot enough to sear the dark agent.

"No, Gibbs, it doesn't work that way this time. We know how it is. You and Fornell get together, talk things over and deals get made that not even J. Edgar could swing and everything goes by the wayside with a simple handshake."

"You've got it wrong."

"Then enlighten me."

"We don't shake hands."

x

"Well, you'd better start shaking something, because this time one of you has stepped in it and it's damned deep."

"Come on, Sachs," DiNozzo admonishes from the knot of agents left behind, "not even you could think one of us shot Trovillot." He stalks up to his adversary, the move seeming a signal for all the teams to crowd about. Ducky and Jimmy take advantage of the mood to get in close as well, Ducky hoping he can interject some reason into the disorder.

Sachs turns, his opinion of the intruders crowding them plain on his face. "I don't know any such thing, DiNozzo. You all have histories that would've gotten you thrown out of the FBI."

"Only if there _is _a God."

"DiNozzo."

"Sorry, boss."

"Any of you could snap, like _that_," he illustrates too close to DiNozzo's face.

"You don't still think I'm cutting legs off corpses," DiNozzo challenges. That suspicion was always as unlikely as this blanket assumption that anyone here has something to do with Trovillot.

"A sniper and assassin on one team; a markswoman, who was also a victim, who has aspirations for Olympic gold heading another team; another woman who came seconds away from blowing her own head off and that's just skimming the surface." He looks to his left, singling Jimmy out by the blue scrubs he and Ducky wear. "Won't be the first time for _you_."

x

"What do you mean by that?" Jimmy demands, outraged, closing on the dark man. Michelle, beside him, takes his arm in an effort to cool his anger.

"You were unaccounted for when Trovillot got shot."

"'Unaccounted for'? I was home with a virus."

"Convenient."

"No, it wasn't!" Michelle exclaims, the comforting hand on his arm changing to a warning grip.

"As a Deputy ME you can make sure the _right _information is found. Your wife was one of the faking victims - and you have a history of _murdering_ suspects who threaten your wi–"

The punch is so swift most agents miss it but Sachs is staggered, driven back to the wall under a brutal rain. In the first instant everyone's shocked, then they rush the pair, everyone talking at once, converging to break up the one-sided battle.

Gibbs is there first. He grabs Jimmy by the collar, yanks the furious man back hard enough to rip most of the blue scrubs top from his shoulders and turns him sharply. "You're under arrest!"

He shoves Jimmy away from Sachs and to DiNozzo. "Cuff him! Read him his rights."

Michelle, appalled, grabs Gibbs' arm. "Special A–"

"_Shut up_."

"You have the right to remain silent," DiNozzo says, snapping handcuffs on the astounded man's wrists. Jimmy's top hangs from his body, sagging from his bare shoulders. Tony continues the recitation as Sachs, blood flowing from his nose and lip, is blocked by Gibbs.

x

"He's under–"

"He's already busted," Gibbs says levelly.

"He assaulted a Federal Agent–"

"On _NCIS_ property as an NCIS employee. He's _our _prisoner."

Sachs pulls a handkerchief, swabs at the blood. For a long moment the air burns between the two men, but Sachs blinks first. "You make sure he stays." He stalks out, followed by the two agents who'd come in with him. A step from the door he turns, looks back to the following agents, then to the crowd. "Bring _her_." He stabs a finger at Supervisory Special Agent Melanie Kelman and the agents go to her, not making the mistake of touching her as they 'guide' her after their boss.

x

When the elevator doors close Gibbs turns on the cuffed man. "Since when do you start thinking with your fists?"

"I'm sorry, I–"

"Special Agent Palmer."

"Yes, sir?" Michelle asks, shaken by the uncharacteristic fury of her husband and the sheer insanity of the situation.

"Take him to Holding and sit on him." He's too angry to second guess himself.

"Sir–" Jimmy tries.

Gibbs fixes him with a deadly glare. "The right to remain silent. _Use it_."

Michelle tugs Jimmy's arm, uses her other hand to boost the remnant of his blue scrubs top back up his bare chest to his shoulders, a useless effort for it collapses immediately. But when she escorts him out of the throng of agents and toward the guarded elevator, they pass Ducky and his hand comes up fast and hard to the back of his Deputy's head.

x

"You don't think he..." DiNozzo, put in the - for him - strange position of defending the 'Autopsy Gremlin', backs down under Gibbs' stare.

"Mister Palmer cannot have done this," Ducky insists, distracting Gibbs' ire. "He went home with a–"

"I know, Duck, you told me. So did Palmer II."

"Palmer deux?" DiNozzo asks and comes back into Gibbs' sights. "Shutting up, boss."

"Not soon enough."

Seeing the questions in the eyes of the surrounding Agents, recalling that the details of the conclusion of the Wiccan incident months ago hadn't become generally known and seeing no need to remain discreet and allow speculation, Gibbs explains that: "Ever since he shot George Franklin last year trying to protect Michelle _Lee_, he can't touch a gun without having panic attacks. Trovillot was killed with a precision shot and the one time, _two _years ago, that Palmer tried out on the range, he got a direct heart shot on the target."

DiNozzo wonders if Gibbs is trying to talk Palmer out of or into handcuffs. "Decided to quit while he was ahead?"

Ken Templeton tells him that "The hit was on _my _target."

"Oh."

But Tony can tell that, though Templeton's attention seems on the here-and-now, his focus is on his Team Leader and whatever she's enduring in the hands of the FBI. Tony doesn't blame him; for all Fornell's idiosyncrasies that make him so reminiscent of Gibbs, or maybe because of them, he'd be a better lead on this case than Sachs.

xx

"I'm _sorry_," Jimmy says as he bursts into the Holding Cell, talking into the bare room as Michelle closes and locks the door. Jimmy turns back to his wife, acutely aware of the handcuffs that restrain him and the scrubs top hanging halfway off his bare torso. "I mean he made me so _mad _I couldn't think. It wasn't just about Franklin - I still have the nightmares and Doctor Gyves hasn't helped me deal with that - but it was that _I'm _supposed to be the one protecting _you_. I'm your _husband _and I couldn't protect you from Trovillot, I couldn't protect you from Mawher, I couldn't protect you from Gebran, I couldn't protect you from Whitney and Klein and Kimmel and Sullivan. I mean I'm your husband - I'm supposed to _be there _for you. Okay, you're the Special Agent, you're the one with the gun, you're the 'Girl from U.N.C.L.E.' where I'm a nothing–"

She yanks the ripped scrubs hard enough to almost rend the fragments from his body, drags him down to her lips.

She'd intended to confront him about the nightmares and seeing Gyves and this outrageous incident but she's changed her mind. Maybe they won't need Reverend McGee's 'couple's counseling' after all, if she can get him talking later,

She'd hope the camera is off if she gave a damn. They can't do anything intimate when others have keys - though she considers it could be a major beneficial distraction and 'therapy' for what ails him - but before she's done her husband is going to know his place in her life and in her heart.

She might even let him out of the handcuffs.

xx

"I don't want Sachs or any of the others to catch him walking around," Gibbs tells Ducky in low tones when they secure a measure of privacy in the crowded garage, "so they stay together in Holding until you need him or I need her."

"Well, with our entire staff on lockdown, that does not seem likely."

"FBI can't shut down NCIS, OSI, CID and CGIS; we're only here until Jenny can get hold of the SECNAV and the other Directors call in their bosses on the Joint Chiefs." He raises his voice to say generally, "In the meantime, enjoy your vacations."

"Because we're going to have twice as much work to do when we get out," SSA Kevin Lamb predicts.

"Right."

x

Gibbs doesn't care if Sachs does follow up on Palmer as his lead suspect. As far as he's concerned, the FBI agent is welcome to that waste-of-time path. Ducky had sent him home, so there's no doubt that the man was actually sick. Further, not only is Jimmy a competent Examiner-in-training but he's also been, for all the years Gibbs has known him, honest to a very annoying fault.

Let Sachs chase his wild goose while NCIS investigates this murder.

x

"Meantime," Gibbs addresses his own team, "there's nothing for the FBI to find to tie any of us to Trovillot, so let's do what we can. McGee, can you link your pocket thingy to your computer?"

"I can try, boss," the computer expert assures him, pulling out his BlackBerry. "I may be locked out of direct access, but they have to keep the Server running and I know a lot of back doors."

"So glad you're on our side," Gibbs says as he pulls out his own cell phone, steps away from the crowd. A few rings in his ear and then a woman's voice comes through the tiny speaker. /Colonel Mann./

"Holly, Jethro. You have any unpleasant visitors today?"

/Funny you should mention that./

"Not a bit. What's your Sit?"

/Stuck on fly paper. The Bi descended on us about half an hour ago with warrants so comprehensive I haven't seen the likes of some of them in years./

"What do you figure's behind it?"

/C.Y.A./

"Yeah, that's what I think. They have no clue who took out Trovillot, this is a knee jerk investigation." More than covering their asses, the F.B.I. is making a grandstand play, perhaps hoping they can find the real killer while their Investigative competitors sit on their hands. "Sit tight, it won't be long. Joint Chiefs will be leaning on Justice."

/Meantime we waste the day./


	12. Lightning Strike

Chapter Twelve  
>Lightning Strike<p>

FBI Agent Rick Sachs, backed by Agent Thomas Malvasta, follows SSA Melanie Kelman into Interrogation One. "Sit down," Malvasta orders and Kelman immediately assumes the Interrogator's chair, her back to the one-way mirror. "Not that chair," Malvasta commands, towering over her at the corner of the table, his tone conveying his opinion of the woman's insolence.

"This is the only chair I use in this room."

"You think you're a smart-ass, don't you?"

Melanie smiles slowly. "I am smart," she assures him, "and you'll never see my ass."

"You NCIS yahoos are–"

"A unique breed," Sachs finishes, sitting down opposite her in the 'suspect' chair, not minding the distinction a bit; he'll work from either side. He'd rather liked the talk of asses, this woman doesn't scare and under that brown skirt she does indeed look like she has a nice one, but he's certainly not going to be so crass as to point this out. "They have their own ways of doing things, you have to know how to handle them."

"When did you become an expert?" Malvasta challenges and Melanie doesn't try to hide a victorious smile, her openness only driving her point home more sharply. In fifteen seconds she already has the agents breaking FBI solidarity.

"When I first went up against DiNozzo," Sachs answers levelly, preferring to downplay the score of that fencing match.

"Pity it didn't help you with our Deputy Medical Examiner." Melanie taps the right side of her upper lip, the spot where blood still smears his face. Sachs wipes at it with a handkerchief, the dry cloth doesn't clean the spot well.

"Day's still young, Miss Kelman," Malvasta says, looking down from directly above her.

x

Melanie, confident in the coverage of her blouse, certain that's not even the man's interest as he hovers above her like a gargoyle, looks slowly up Malvasta's body to his face and smiles as slowly. "Supervisory Special Agent Kelman, Agent Malvasta."

"I don't like _Special _Agents," his tone gives the title a disgusted slur, "who hide behind the law to take it into their own hands."

"In my experience, Agent Malvasta, the law's awfully thin to hide behind."

"You'd have a pretty hard time," he says, looking her down and up so brazenly she can't help but laugh inwardly at the outrageous ploy.

Openly she limits herself to a teasing / mocking smile. "You don't like women, do you, Agent Malvasta?"

x

"You're a good markswoman," Sachs says to head off the shootout for, rather than his angering her, Kelman's turnabout keeps getting under Malvasta's guard. He doesn't want this 'interview' to dissolve any further; Malvasta's armed, Kelman is not, but in an unarmed duel he gives the woman 2:1

Melanie inclines her head, graciously acknowledging the gender recognition, but Sachs regrets the Bureau's choice for his partner in this assignment. Having someone with a dislike of civilians with power over the military is only a hindrance in this investigation, but couple that with an antipathy for women in stations of authority...

"Markswoman," Malvasta sneers. "We pulled your Firearms Certifications. They _say _you scored 100 percent on each and every evaluation you took since the day you first certified."

"That's right."

"That's _impossible_. Someone's doctored the records, but why? Passing's good enough to make Supervisor, unless someone's giving a little extra boost."

"No doctoring, no need," she assures him with another designed-to-be-maddening smile, knowing that ignoring the innuendo as though it had never been made is even more maddening. She wonders how much field experience the man has, or is he a probie? Could that be the reason for his heavy-handed technique - no finesse whatsoever - or is he trying to lull her into a false sense of security? Much more likely.

"You actually score hundreds every time you shoot?"

"I wouldn't be 'shooting' for the Olympics if I didn't." She sits back, one arm draped over the chair back. "Leroy Gibbs is building a special display for my gold medals; the Director's going to have it mounted in the Conference Room."

"What'll you be shooting?"

"A .223 Remington, though I prefer a .22 WMR. I have to use what the IOC declares as their current standard."

"The round that got Trovillot was a .22."

"That's nice."

"_Nice_?"

"You think you'll fluster me by mentioning one of the most common calibers in the world? A .45 Magnum might ricochet after going through Trovillot's head, maybe bounce back off one of the paving stones on the walkway and possibly kill someone in the crowd."

x

"You're not very heavy," Malvasta says, even more aggravated.

"Thank you," Kelman says, surprised and deciding to treat this as a slightly unusual compliment.

"You could climb up on the roof across the street and set up a shot without even giving yourself away to the people inside."

"There was no one inside the house. Didn't you read the reports? And I wouldn't have to 'set up' any shot."

"You're good with a rifle," Malvasta says, moving in closer, towering over her, feeling he's boxing her in. "You could hit Trovillot from a rooftop without a laser sight."

"Oh, _p-lease_, now I _am _insulted. Across a _street_?" She leans forward on the table, looks up askance at him. "I could put a round through the iris of your beady eye at a thousand feet through a tornado."

"How?" Sachs has heard his share of marksman boasts but this is a whole new dimension of self-aggrandizement... but she'd said it as though it's a fact, not a boast.

Her smile to Sachs is mocking, however. "Did you think my scores were faked?"

"Yes," Malvasta says instantly.

"They're not," she says, still looking at Sachs.

"How?" Sachs repeats.

x

Melanie's smile is sweetly insolent. "My hand/eye coordination is excellent, always has been, but I'm also a lightning calculator. I can take any variables including nearly-microscopic expansion of the gun barrel as I continue firing to changing wind speed and direction, humidity, the gradual loss of inertia dependent upon air pressure which changes based upon elevation above sea level, what I feel from the gun and my own skin, readjust my aim and make any shot you name. In inspecting a bomb blast I can give you the vectors and probable distance of every piece of shrapnel, even those too small to be found until I tell you where to look. At a shooting I can tell you where the gunman was standing, the position and attitude of the victim, the _orientation _of the gun and where each moved to as the gun or guns were fired without wasting time with strings or lasers."

"Lightning calculator, huh?" Malvasta says, derision in every syllable.

She turns her head enough to look up at him through the corner of her eye. "Yes."

"Prove it." He pulls a BlackBerry from his jacket pocket, calls up the Calculator App. "Ready?"

"Sure," she says, settling back in the chair with an attitude that says she's going to enjoy the so-called challenge.

"One million two hundred one thousand two thirty one times four hundred seventy five, divided by ninety five thousand six eighty two times five thousand seven thirteen plus nine hundred forty seven all divided by five thousand seven hundred eighty seven."

"Fifty eight thousand eight hundred sixty five point seventy seven oh fifty seven."

The smile falls off Malvasta's lips.

"Lucky guess?" Sachs asks, enjoying the man's deflation, FBI partner or no.

"Okay," Malvasta declares, certain it _had _to have been a fluke, "what's the square root of four billion, two seventy nine million, three hundred sixty thousand, six hundred forty one?"

"Sixty five thousand four hundred sixteen point eight twenty-two thirty-one."

"Okay," Malvasta practically snarls, clutching the device and typing as fast as he can, his tongue fairly tripping over the numbers. "Fifty seven thousand two eighty seven times one hundred nineteen thousand three sixty eight divided by fifty eight thousand two ninety three!"

"One hundred seventeen thousand three oh seven point nine eight nine two."

"Square root it!"

"Three forty two point zero two five thirty-nine." This time she beat his calling up the answer.

"Okay, smart ass, nine–"

"_Enough_."

x

"So," Sachs says when he regains control, more impressed than he's willing to show and more annoyed than he'll admit by Malvasta's having been sucked into his own ploy, "you were hired for this lightning thing?"

"Hardly. I'm a Senior Investigator for many reasons." She hadn't wanted the appointment the day she'd received it, the tragic day her _real _Team Leader had been murdered, but beside talents brought out in intense training and experience, she brings one more special talent into the mix. "Among them is this: the day in 2005 when you first came with Agent Fornell to interview Special Agent DiNozzo on suspicion of murder, we passed each other in the hallway. You were wearing a brown/green overcoat over a charcoal grey pinstripe suit, and there was a tiny stain on the left edge of your light red flecked red tie. You were wearing a silver watch with black face and silver indicator marks rather than numerals. You hadn't slept well the night before and you'd nicked yourself shaving on your right cheek an inch and an eighth forward of your earlobe."

"I'll take your word for it," Sachs says, sure only that he does have such a suit, tie and watch and had been so focused on the investigation he doesn't remember seeing her at all. He leans forward. "Tell me, Special Agent Kelman, you ever forget anything?"

"No."

"Then tell me this." He leans an inch closer, his voice dropping. "Who killed Thomas Trovillot?"

x

She leans closer until they're inches apart, her voice dropping intimately. "I don't know."

"If you did, if it turned out to be one of your colleagues, would you tell me?"

"Since it isn't one of my colleagues, yes."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I know them. Any one of us could kill, some of us _have _killed to protect his or her life or someone else's - but no one of us as would assassinate a suspect."

"Trovillot humiliated all of you."

"You bet _your _ass he did," she sits back and glances up at Malvasta, "and sorry to disappoint you but that wasn't my ass in any of those pictures," she returns her attention to Sachs, "but none of us are _stupid_. We know what an investigation will uncover." She leans back in the seat.

"It's much more satisfying to keep that jackal in a cage where we can gloat every day than it is to try to maintain a five minute satisfaction that he got what he richly deserved."

x

"Deserved?" Is she going to put her neck in the noose and make it easy for them after all?

"Yes, and though I know I come back into your radar for saying this, I feel very _cheated_ that he's dead. None of us wanted him dead because now we're cheated out of him; but we still have Sam Waters and Harry Carter. I wanted them in cages surrounded by nothing but men, knowing that when they get out not a single woman in the world will trust them."

"Someone would, some day." He's known too many odd cases.

"No, they will not," Melanie declares definitely. "Even if either of them found some woman who never heard about what they did, she'd learn everything pretty damned fast. That shit's still on the Internet, it'll be there forever, so since we can't stop it _we're _going to use it. There are a lot of us and we're looking forward to keeping tabs on those bastards and their love lives, and we're going to enjoy some _hobbies_."

"You not going to threaten to tell their prospective girlfriends." Sachs is sure he knows better, but wants to see where he stands with this woman. She doesn't seem the kind to threaten, but the kind to act.

"Hardly. That's illegal. We're going to give it away, immediately and gratis. Not stalking either, it's just 'freedom of information'. Any woman who ever shows an interest in one of them will be given the gift of knowledge."

"Not the 'forgive and forget' kind of girl, are you?" Malvasta asks, still invading her space.

She looks up at him, steel replacing determination. "No, Agent Malvasta, I am not the 'forgive and forget' kind of _woman_. You're confusing me with Chaplain McGee. One of my friends nearly killed herself over those pictures when her family _disowned _her. Hundreds of us in the four Services were humiliated; so no, I didn't want that cockless bastard dead.

"I wanted - _we _wanted - him and his two friends to spend the rest of time in a nine by nine cage, knowing we'll be ready when they get out. He and his friends tried to destroy hundreds of lives, so we're going to destroy _their_ lives hundreds of times."


	13. Death Rejoices

Chapter Thirteen  
>Death Rejoices<p>

"Gibbs," Ziva, already tired of the forced confinement in the Evidence Holding section, approaches the tall man as soon as she sees his anger has quelled. She hates the idea of resparking it and pitches her voice as low as she can, wanting to make certain the news doesn't prematurely spread through the room before the Deputy SAIC has absorbed the significance of it. "I am afraid the FBI _will _find a connection to us and Trovillot's murder."

"What?" He's never loved surprises, and from the expression on his agent's face he's going to detest this one.

Before she can answer, the elevator door opens and Jennifer Shepherd steps in past the two guarding agents. This at the worst possible time in Ziva's view; Gibbs may be impatient and frequently fiery, but as her day-to-day supervisor he is somewhat predictable. Though she knows Shepherd longer, she does not know the woman as well, so Shepherd's reactions are less certain. But having started the explanation, she has Gibbs' attention and cannot draw back. She can only hope things work out and that her job survives the coming calamity.

"Yesterday an invitation went out, not long after Trovillot's murder, for a celebration to be held last night at a VFW Post. The invitation was addressed to all the female agents."

"A celebration?" Gibbs asks aloud, seeing Shepherd approach and not moderating his voice at all, not caring about the FBI Agents assigned to guard them. Since the invitation went out via computer rather than voice, the FBI will learn of it eventually. His words slice through the crowd, silencing conversations. "To party over a murder?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you _go_?"

"No, I did not."

"Did Palmer?"

"It is my understanding she stayed home to tend to her sick husband."

He turns on McGee, all the while doubting the likelihood, but he wants to be absolutely sure, intending to hit from the high ground. "Did _your_ wife?"

"Errr," this is the first McGee's hearing of it and he isn't sure _what _he's hearing about. "We went grocery shopping. She didn't mention any party. Then again, she wouldn't mention something like that."

"Your version of 'Don't ask, don't tell', Probie?"

"That's right, Tony," he tells his partner sharply.

Gibbs only cares that none of his people were so idiotic. He sees the outrage on Shepherd's face; she's too angry to cut in.

"Who went to this party?" Gibbs demands generally. Slow hands rise, sixteen in the room.

"Whose idea _was_ it?" Shepherd's whip-snap voice cuts them.

x

"It was mine," a voice wrapped in smothering apprehension turns all eyes toward Susan Bourne. Fred Higgins is in front of his agent in an instant.

"Are you _crazy_?" he demands, his face rapidly passing red into deep purple. He can't believe one of his people, who he takes such pride in, would be this stupid.

"I just–"

"_What_ did you do?" Shepherd nearly pushes Higgins aside to confront the embarrassed woman.

"I– Director– I–"

"Too late now. Spit it out!"

"It was just a little … my uncle's a member of the VFW Post a few blocks from … that is, it was just a get-together, a way to blow off steam. From 2200 – 0300, crossing the shifts so–"

"So you people could celebrate the assassination of the man we're now under suspicion of murdering. And why didn't I get this email?"

"I– er– didn't think it was appropriate?"

"That decision's probably the only thing that saves you from being terminated right this second. When the FBI finds that message…." She's too angry to finish. "Get out of my _sight_!"

Bourne retreats to the far side of the room, smothered in angry glares from nearly all present, including those who'd attended the party. Shepherd turns to Gibbs and Higgins, fighting down her rage. "There's only one way to save this."

"Director–" Higgins tries.

"_Don't_. Don't talk about it; don't do anything because I'm two seconds away from…." She stalks to the guarded door, addresses the older of the black suited Agents standing in front of the Iris Scanner and charged with the unenviable task of keeping a room full of Special Agents corralled. "I want to talk to Agent Sachs _now_."

"Director, I'm sorry but you simply cannot come and go at will. You and all your agents are confined for the course of our investigation."

"I see. And just _who _is confining them? You and your partner? Agent Sachs? These 47 men and women stay in here wasting precious time at _my_ direction while I resolve this far above any of your Pay Grades. If I wish, all 48 of us will simply walk past you and there isn't a blessed thing you can do short of shooting unarmed United States Federal Agents. Now step aside."

Before he can move, the elevator car arrives, the doors slide open and Michelle Palmer is on its other side.

x

The man, uncertain enough about letting Shepherd out unescorted, puts his hand up to block Palmer's entrance until he can regain control of the situation.

"If you lay a finger on me," Michelle tells the tall man with a sweet smile, "I'll kick you in the balls so hard your grandchildren will be lame." She steps past his hesitation. "Director." She makes a B-line to Gibbs, Shepherd at her heels.

"What've you got, Palmer?" Gibbs asks when the women are close enough to maintain a veneer of privacy in the crowded room. He'd rather liked Palmer's image, envying her the option of calling it up.

"Sir, Jimmy IM'd Doctor Jordan Hampton," she says with a brief nod to Ducky, who'd approached unobtrusively to stand nearby at the first indication of mounting tension. The restriction from using NCIS' facilities had, foolishly, not been extended to Blackberries; Jimmy had obviously used hers as his torn scrubs contain no place to hide the instrument.

"Paul Kensington, the man who was shot in the head when Lance Corporal Harold Campbell was wounded a few weeks ago, the same day we found out about the photofakes, Doctor Hampton says there were three other headshot murders in the District; one prior to that, Alexander Costello in Georgetown, then after Kensington Raymond Tutolo was shot in the head in Brookland.

"But the real kicker is that she's on the site of a body of a 47 year old man, Richard Arulsamy, who was found shot in Adams Morgan. His was also a long range headshot and this happened _within the hour_."

x

That brings the number of head shot deaths to five, and Gibbs suspects more will be found scattered through the seven districts. He isn't surprised it took a high profile incident like Trovillot's to bring unity to the cases but it still took a motivated couple and the ME Network to bring it all together. The best aspect of _this _case, if such a word can be used, is that the confined agents cannot possibly be deemed culpable in Richard Arulsamy's murder.

Shepherd glances at Ducky, seeing the man is distinctly pleased at the initiative of his Deputy. "Ducky, you've got your work cut out for you. Get on with your colleagues; I need a profile of our killer within two hours."

"You shall have it within an hour and a half."

She looks about the room, her commanding voice cutting through her agents. "All right, everyone, let's get back to work." She leads the advance upon the distinctly outnumbered FBI agents.

"Director, please, I–"

"You might as well stand aside. Not only does this information prove we're exonerated but I've already spoken to the SECNAV, he's getting on to Justice; Justice will speak to your Director who'll contact Agent Sachs." She hadn't wanted to reveal this information until success was assured, but at this point the matter is moot. "You can save time by stepping aside now, or I can have Special Agent Palmer address the issue of your progeny."

xxx

"DiNozzo," Gibbs says as the team resumes their places in their bullpen, "get on with Carpenter, check out Paul Kensington's background; prior arrests, everything." The Metro Detective is the key investigator into the murder in which Lance Corporal Harold Campbell was wounded as apparent 'collateral damage'. Pity his jurisdiction was limited to one district. "McGee, you background Alexander Costello in Georgetown; David, Raymond Tutolo in Brookland and Palmer, you take Richard Arulsamy in Adams Morgan. You've got thirty minutes."

Tempers throughout the building are shortened by frustration; the agents have lost far too much time with that ridiculous lock-up in Evidence Holding while the FBI played detective with their sensitive files, searching for evidence of murder where none existed, all of which could have let vital evidence grow cold. Gibbs is glad the alphabet soup has pulled out, he could go for years without seeing any of them again and be a very happy man.

He reads in McGee's face that the man dearly longs to run one of his diagnosis thingies on all the computers but he doesn't want to give him the time. He must crack the whip as his people try to catch up, making up for time lost to those officious fools.

xxx

Ducky, after collecting Jimmy from Holding, enters the Autopsy suite to vast surprise; his former student Samantha Sky stands before the first silver table. After the unpleasant afternoon, this is a pleasurable encounter but still "What are you doing here?"

"I came for a visit, to bring you something."

"How'd you get in?" Jimmy, somewhat less reserved, demands. He feels foolish standing here in ripped scrubs and yanks them over his head.

"_Nice_," Sammy says with an appreciative smile.

Ducky, however, has had enough of the day. He hasn't missed that Sammy's wearing her old plastic coated ID card clipped to her blouse. The card is months old, long expired and he'd expected it'd been turned over to 'Pass and ID' following the conclusion of the Powers case last year. "Why do you still have that ID?"

"Oh, I kept it as a souvenir of happy days."

"You did not turn it in on your final day?"

"Nope. Nobody said anything."

He supposes that he should have collected the card last year, and shall today, but there's more of importance than an expired card: "You entered the main gate and passed Security upstairs with an expired card?"

"Kinda," she admits, for the first time no longer chipper over the flub. "The MPs at the gate just passed me, and upstairs there was such confusion with FBI arriving and taking control and Security not wanting to release it that when no weapon showed up in X-ray or the metal detector I was just escorted down here and left to wait."

"And you've been here, unattended, ever since?"

"Yeppers."

Ducky's not sure this is something to be grinned about, but though he certainly has many issues about Security to address to Jennifer Shepherd, his apprentice's method of arrival is the least of those issues. He does note, however, that his former Apprentice's eyes keep flickering to his Deputy. "Mister Palmer, if you please?"

It's only then that Jimmy, undoubtedly absorbed in his own concerns, recalls his shirtless condition. "Oh, yeah, sorry." He heads toward the rear store room.

"Don't hurry on my account," Sammy urges, licking her lips in a not-entirely-teasing manner, eyes locked on his back as he departs.

"Sammy..."

She turns. "Oh, yes, why I'm here," she says, evidently trying to regain the original motivation over the revised one. She turns to the low, three foot long decoratively wrapped package set upon the silver table behind her even as Jimmy returns from the rear room, pulling on an intact blue scrubs shirt. She picks up the long, gift wrapped package and turns about to Ducky. "Happy Birthday."

"I - why, thank you, Miss Sky." He takes the package which, despite its size, isn't significantly heavy yet feels he must confess that "This is a bit awkward however; you see, my birthday is September 19, 5 months from now."

"I know," she pipes. "That's why I was sure it'd be a surprise."

x

There's not a lot Ducky can say; getting in front of Sammy Sky's zest has always been a challenge and she's caught him quite handily this time. "Thank you."

"Open it," she suggests, her anticipation brilliant.

He sets the long package upon the table beside her and proceeds to do so, uncovering a long brown box which he raises the lid of. When he sees the wooden framed white glass rectangle within, the letters raised in black on the wired light sign, he's struck dumb.

"Do you like it?" she asks after many silent seconds, anticipation quivering her tone.

"I love it," he breathes, nearly overcome. It takes a few more seconds for him to regain his voice. "Thank you."

"What is it?" Jimmy asks from the base of the table. Though he can see the black capital letters on the frosted glass, he can't read them.

"It says, Mister Palmer," he must swallow down the emotion, touched as he is by the sentiment expressed in the gift - the Latin words could as easily have been in English, it shows the extra depth she went to in rendering the motto in the original: HIC LOCUS EST UBI MORS GAUDET SUCCURRERE VITAE.

"It means, Mister Palmer," he tries again, managing this time to steady his voice, "'This is where death rejoices to teach the living.'" He turns to Sammy, must still take a moment. "Thank you."

xxx

The research Gibbs had assigned his team actually takes less time than the overly generous thirty minutes he'd allotted, since Police records form the focus of the organized search. DiNozzo is the first to put down his phone and report barely thirteen minutes after the command had been given.

"You're going to love this," he predicts.

"Why?"

"Because of the list of currently unsolved murders, the men were all shot but there were four women, not counting Gerber, who were stabbed."

"Ten deaths, as either a coincidence or a trend, is too extreme," Ziva declares.

"Ya think?" Gibbs challenges.

"Your amigo Carpenter," DiNozzo continues, "says Kensington had a list of arrests going back over six years but the one they'd pinned their hopes on was an ADW against his wife Louise five months ago. Case went to trial March 9th, thrown out because of tainted evidence. Rookie cop found the gun in a neighbor's back yard, brought it into the house without having photographed it on site or establishing the chain. All the CSIs whittled him down to a nub but it was too late. Defense said he brought it with him to frame Kensington, the ADA fought it and lost. Eleven days later Kensington had his head ventilated."

"Raymond Tutolo in Brookland," Ziva announces, "broke into the home of an elderly couple, Gustav and Emelia Henkson on January 6th, assaulted both of them, beat 81 year old Gustav so badly he was hospitalized for a month before robbing the couple of nearly thirty-seven thousand dollars worth of antique silver coins. The coins ultimately had to be sold to offset the medical bills, but when Tutolo was finally caught Emelia, aged 77, could not positively ID him in a line-up. It was at night, he was seen too briefly and the husband did not get a look at him at all. The best fingerprint obtained was only a three point match."

"Alexander Costello in Georgetown," McGee says, trying to turn off his feelings not only about the Henkson case but his own, "was involved in a DWI accident, his 17th DWI arrest. This time he hit two 19 year old women, Ivy Frasier and Karen Penn, who were crossing _against _the light on New Jersey Avenue. Defense convinced the court that if the girls hadn't been jay-walking they'd never have been hit. Costello got only 'Time Served' for the DWI. Penn is still down with a shattered hip." He won't comment on death being an extreme retribution for this case, wondering if Frasier or particularly would consider it extreme.

"Richard Arulsamy in Adams Morgan," Michelle reports, her tone carrying her feelings quite clearly, "beat his Linda so badly I am _not _going to look at the pictures again. She'd needed reconstructive surgery, but the only way her husband would pay for it was if she dropped the charges."

No one mentions the array of alternatives the wife, now the widow, had.

"Forward everything to Ducky, and Abby too. Shepherd already has the clock ticking on that Psych Autopsy."


	14. Up Close and Personal

Chapter Fourteen  
>Up Close and Personal<p>

Gibbs lets his team have a few moments to compile the case reports, then wants to know: "How much time between these guys beating their cases and their deaths?" The answers reveal a range of only four to seven days between the men having escaped prosecution and their subsequent executions.

"Enough time for our shooter to hear or read about the cases in Newspapers or on radio and TV and plan his hits," DiNozzo concludes

"Trovillot was shot in one day," Ziva protests.

"After the case getting more coverage than O.J. Simpson 1 and 2 and his calling that Press Conference," DiNozzo counters. He's never been a big fan of the 'power of the press', and this incident only supports his view.

"It was probably the Press Conference that put Trovillot on the fast track to a fatal migraine," McGee says. "It was announced far enough in advance that the sniper had plenty of time to scope out his or her position."

"I say let the shooter have the other two, Carter and Waters," Ziva declares, "and we can get on with cases in our jurisdiction."

"Much as I'd agree," Michelle counters, initially surprising them, "we'd still have a suspicion over us that we, or CGIS or OSI _or _CID, took out Trovillot and will take out the others if we don't get him first."

"Plus the fact," Gibbs reminds them, "that we still have Ensign Cabrera to resolve."

Though the consensus was that the Ensign hadn't killed Carol Gerber, certainty of innocence doesn't necessarily mean not guilty or not a suspect / person of interest. To close the book on Gerber, the real killer must be identified and captured.

"IF this is not a copycat case," Ziva counters. "He could have made a connection to hide his crime, or so the DA would say."

"If Gerber were shot," Tony trumps her. "But she was stabbed."

"I'm _still _waiting on how many more non-shootings fit the profile," Gibbs' impatience weights the words like lead, seemingly slamming them to the floor.

x

Renewed diligence eventually discloses six deaths prior to Gerber's over the past four months, scattered through the MPDC districts as currently open cases, cold and getting colder. There have been five additional stabbings and one drowning. Of the stabbings two of them took place inside homes while the victim was supposed to be alone, three were in alley, park and parking lot. There's been little or no useful forensic evidence; unlike the Gerber stabbing, no knife was ever found.

"You've shared this with Abby and Ducky?" Gibbs asks generally.

Tim is the one to assure him that "Per your orders, they were copied on every finding."

Gibbs uses the plasma remote and a few moments later the agents are gathered around an overhead image of Abby in her lab. "Abby, the knife that killed Gerber, could it have been used in any other murders?"

"It could," she temporizes, her hands illustrating her words "but I doubt it. Blood finds all sorts of places to hide, like where the blade is imbedded into the handle. I tested there, hoping our perp cut him or herself, but all I found was Gerber's blood."

Well, it was worth a try. "What else did you find?"

x

"The blade and handle had been thoroughly cleaned before they were used. I found traces of commercial grade cleansers and also bleach."

"You have anything on that?"

"It's in my report," she insists, her tone reminding them they'd already have her report if she hadn't been so rudely interrupted by the FBI. "I had to narrow down some of the properties or you'd be checking every restaurant, diner and bistro and trucker hangout on the east coast."

"Appreciated, Abs."

"Well, at least you do," she says, slightly mollified.

"That's not all you found." He doesn't allow the slightest doubt to invade his voice.

"Of course not," she says more happily, sounding like she's ready to launch into a long dissertation. "I _did _find microscopic traces of latex, probably from the perp's glove because there were no usable fingerprints."

"Usable?" The blood drops in 'Shangra-La's' ladies room could be from a bloody glove which had been pulled off there or from less pleasant sources. He'll get to that. He decides he doesn't have to ask her about blood laced with particles of latex; she'll've thought of it and if it's there she'll tell him.

"Well sure, you know latex doesn't completely obscure the ridges and valleys, the very best it can do is about 98 percent. I did find prints but they were indistinguishable."

"Any chance you can bring them out?"

"I'm so glad you asked, O Silver Fox. I am indeed using, even as we speak, a computer enhancement program that might bring them out."

"Great, Abs. When?"

"If I super, super fast track it, and I have," her voice drops as she admits, "tomorrow afternoon."

"Abby–"

"Come _on_, Gibbs! Have you any idea what it's like providing excellent service on two percent of a fingerprint? Then I have to put it through AIFIS and hope. That's why I didn't want to mention it until I had something to thrill you with."

"You can thrill me now by telling me about the blood you found at Shangra-La."

"Whatever turns you on," she replies with a saucy smile and more expressive tone.

He wishes she wouldn't. It's enough when this teasing mood hits her in the privacy of her lab, but she must know his entire team, and more agents, can hear her every word. "Abs."

"The blood was AB+, same type as Gerber but I need to run more tests to confirm it _is _hers. I was about to do that when the FBI broke in like I was John Dillinger."

He breaks the connection, blacking the screen. The other agents can picture Abby staring up at the overhead camera, calling 'hello, Gibbs, hello?' before realizing she's not going to get an answer and turning away, miffed. None of them wants to be the first to go down there this afternoon.

xx

"Boss," DiNozzo calls forty five minutes after Gibbs' aborted conversation with Abby, "stabbing victim Diane Dohrn, found in her apartment about three months ago, Metro has it as a Cold Case but get this; she was arrested two months before that for Crack dealing, one of her 'customers' _allegedly_ got a bad batch and OD'd but the charges were dropped when the Grand Jury voted 'No True Bill'."

"I'm really starting to hate that phrase," Michelle mutters just quietly enough for Gibbs to ignore – this time.

"Got something just as good," McGee declares. "Wendy Mallick of Kalorama Heights found dead in a movie theater. Movie was Saw 5, lots of screaming. Lights came up, the two guys who were cleaning up the popcorn and soda cups thought she was asleep, but she was asleep in her own blood, a nine inch deep wound in her side. The thrust was straight in; the ME theorized someone seated next to her slipped a blade between her ribs. She'd been involved with a holdup and shooting a few weeks before that; boyfriend got three years, she turned State's and walked."

"All right," Gibbs declares, "we have head shots on a few moving targets; we have stabbings including one done in front of forty witnesses, and in every case so far the common thread is that all of them beat out going to jail."

"Several cases were mentioned in the papers in advance of their deaths," Michelle says, "others may not have been but all are public record. Any determined killer could compile a list just using Google."

"Don't even need a home computer," McGee concurs, "all you need is a Library or a friend." He hadn't wanted to point this out for it multiplies the amount of work to be done. Unfortunately it has to be addressed, and he already knows Gibbs' answer.

"We'll concentrate on home and work computers right now – _because that doesn't help us one damn bit anyway_. Get me a suspect and we can look at his computer. Forensics!"

"All these cases are Metro's," Ziva points out.

"Get on the line to them, let's see what the stabbings turned up."

Shooting a target with a good sniper rifle means you can be about 1,200 yards away. He's done further, yet stabbing someone is still an 'up close and personal' crime.

xx

It's closing on 1700, an hour past nominal quitting time though as far as he's concerned no one is going home yet, when Gibbs walks into the Forensics Lab. Abby sees him coming and plants her fists upon her hips.

"Gibbs, when did you start not liking me?"

"Always liked you, Abs," he tells her, handing her a large white and red plastic container that almost challenges his coffee cup. She takes it but it doesn't improve her mood. He wonders if this is about his hanging up on her earlier. She should be used to it.

"I _thought_ you liked me, but if you did like me you wouldn't have done such a nasty thing to me."

"Hold it." He's done a great deal with her over the years – she might say 'to' – but nothing, not even temporarily removing the 'Caf-Pow!' machine from the building following her breakdown that'd sent her on a sabbatical to Hawaii, could ever be classed as 'nasty'. "What did I do?"

"You had Metro send me the Forensics - an hour ago - on _14 cases_ on a night when I have a date."

"Sorry about the boyfriend, Abs, but there's work to be done."

"Oh, it's no boyfriend. At least not yet. Maybe." Her mood is suddenly much more upbeat. "Sammy's taking me to 'Taiwan On' and we're going to toss to see who gets tied down. Or up. Or maybe we'll meet some guys there, or a guy and a girl, who knows?, and we can see who really learns the ropes."

"Too much information."

"That's your problem, Gibbs, you never want to tie – I mean _try _– new things."

"Just be careful. DiNozzo visited that club during the Powers case and barely escaped with his cojones."

She gives him a saucy smirk. "Place like that might make a man out of him."

"It'd make something out of him, I don't want to know what."

"Speaking of 'something', if I give you something really good, can I go early tonight?"

x

He knows she means 'go early' as in not as long as he intends to keep the team, and since she'd started out by complaining about having too much to work through she wouldn't ask if she weren't confident she already had enough to win the bargain. He remembers from DiNozzo's recounting that, like Shangra-La, Taiwan-On doesn't get going with its specialty business until nearly midnight so he could hope - uselessly - that the woman will be gone before the Bondage Kink Club gets too wild. He doesn't like the place, feels it's trouble waiting to happen – but he knows he has a better chance of talking her out of ever drinking another 'Caf-Pow!' than he does in talking her out of a club she's set her mind upon. "Sure."

Even if she sifted through fourteen case files tonight, she'd be too tired to give him any conclusions, so he can wait until morning.

x

She smiles with even greater self-satisfaction, all trace of her earlier ire gone as she takes up the plastic cup and draws a hefty swig of the red liquid and proclaims: "Metro sent all the fingerprints taken at the Crime Scenes at all the stabbings and not _one_ of Ensign Mark Cabrera's digits has been anywhere near any of them."

He moves the cup out from between them, leans in to kiss her cheek. "Enjoy getting tied up tonight."

"Oh, no; I'm definitely going to be the tyer – _Sammy's_ going to be the tyee - is that a word? - no - though she doesn't know it yet. She said there hasn't been a knot she hasn't had used on her but I've got 500 years of Navy cinches on me." She smiles at his look at this double entendre. "Unless, of course, we run into some really great guys, or a guy and girl as I said, and we _both _learn the ropes."

"Still too much information."

xxx

When Gibbs returns to the bullpen after his surreal conversation with Abby, McGee is on the telephone but as soon as he sees him he presses the 'hold' button. "Boss, Steven Gerber on line 1."

Gibbs can think of a dozen reasons why he doesn't want to take this call, but there's little choice. He can at least hear how predictable the man is, but this time he's using the phone so he'll control how long the nonsense lasts. Doubting he's going to get much useful from the officious man, Gibbs goes around his desk, sits down and presses the flashing button. "Special Agent Gibbs."

/Steven Gerber,/ the man replies as succinctly. /You're taking too long./

Gibbs holds back a smile. 'So predictable I don't know why I tried.' "This is an on-going investigation, but I can be out there within the half hour to get some answers from you now." He certainly has no intention of allowing Gerber inside NCIS. He's sure no good can come of the man's even knowing the layout of the building, and there's no question at all about his getting into the same building with Mark Cabrera. A man with Gerber's money and power can buy a lot, and Gibbs isn't going to have any of it unleashed here.

/I've told you all you need to arrest your Navy flunky and turn him over to the authorities./

Gibbs grins, not about to ask who the 'authorities' are in a Naval investigation.

"He's safe. And he didn't do it."

/_What do you mean 'he didn't do it'_? You have dozens of witnesses who all agree he did./

"There's one problem with witnesses who agree; they usually agree about the wrong thing. Mark Cabrera did not murder your daughter."

/Are you _mad_? This is the most blatant _cover-up_ I've ever heard!/

"Would you like to know who killed your daughter?"

/_I know who killed her_!/ Gibbs says nothing, and after twenty seconds he gets the answer he'd wanted. /Yes./

"So would I. We're finding out a lot about your daughter's activities. She's made a lot of enemies, but Cabrera's not one of them."

"What do you mean?"

Gerber couldn't have forgotten their conversation earlier. "Credit card fraud, identity theft, there're a lot of people who'd like to have gotten back a little of what they lost to your daughter; and someone may have decided to collect in blood."

_Click_!

x

'Too bad," Gibbs thinks as he hangs up the phone. 'If I were him, I'd like to have known. Then again, maybe he already does.' "McGee."

"Yes, boss?"

"That call come from the Gerber estate?" He knows McGee had fixed the position as a standard procedure. He'd given that order about incoming calls months ago.

"Yes, boss."

"Get to work on tapping his phone, I want to know if he makes any calls to take care of Cabrera himself."

He picks up the phone receiver again, this time pressing an intercom code. The reply comes in seconds. /McRoberts./

"Phil, Gibbs. Got a stakeout job for you. Steven Gerber," he gives the agent the address. "If he leaves his place, I want to know where he goes. If he has any visitors I want to know right away. Make sure you get some good shots so Abby can recognize them."

/You got it./

Hanging up the phone again, the next order is to the woman opposite and to his left. "Palmer, need a warrant for a wire tap and authorization for surveillance."

She's long ago gotten used to being an afterthought. "Already filling in the Affidavits."


	15. Fire Call

Chapter Fifteen  
>Fire Call<p>

"DiNozzo," Gibbs calls across the bullpen when he's satisfied the man has had sufficient time to study his information. "What've you got on the stabbings?"

"A lot of the MOs from various Crime Scenes are similar enough to the Gerber stabbing, and Cabrera was at sea aboard the New York during all of them."

Gibbs is satisfied he has enough valid reason to order the Ensign's release. "Cut him loose. I want someone to escort him straight to his ship, no detours."

"I have Latimer standing by. Cabrera'll go straight from Holding to the dock. Some Shore Leave."

"He's had enough excitement for one port call." The ship will eventually sail and while Gibbs is confident the man had been falsely accused of Carol Gerber's murder, he wants the Ensign aboard for his own safety. Cabrera will remain on the New York and out of range of anything a vengeful Steven Gerber might do.

Meantime, though their principal connection to the case is out of reach of all but NCIS, Gibbs is unwilling to drop the case. True, their interest is split between in vindicating an innocent man and catching the real killer, but putting Cabrera back on his ship is a precautionary measure. No one outside NCIS need know Cabrera is no longer in custody and will soon head out to sea.

NCIS' ties with the case are still as firm, for Gibbs is sure Gerber's murder is tied in with the shooting of Corporal Campbell, and his team will proceed from that base until Gibbs is satisfied they've worked every possible angle.

He has no intention of allowing a murderer to escape. Granted whoever killed Paul Kensington had only wounded Lance Corporal Harold Campbell as 'collateral damage', but this added to Cabrera is more than enough to keep the case firmly in NCIS' jurisdiction.

Though the Trovillot shooting brought them into the headshot cases, courtesy of the FBI's grandstand play, Campbell's wounding keeps them there.

Gibbs has more faith in the ability of his own people to solve this case faster than Metro or any other agency. When they do so - not if but when - it'll be icing on the cake.

xx

"Special Agent Gibbs?" a woman's voice calls into Operations from high above. He looks up to the MTAC platform and sees Cynthia Sumner standing near the platform's edge. She's leaning on the platform, her feet well back, evidently aware of her skirt and DiNozzo's position directly below her. "The Director needs you in MTAC."

He's mildly surprised; a better way to attract him is to come downstairs and speak to him at his desk or, if it's urgent, to call him on his phone. This must be some level of urgency somewhere in between, but the method... For a brief moment he has an image of her standing on the balcony and whistling, but he's sure that'd never happen at any NCIS facility.

He leaves his desk, heads for the stairs, deciding he'll discuss the matter with her when he finds out what could be intermediately urgent.

Fortunately, none of his people break their own discipline to look to him about the cause of this summons.

He's glad Sumner has used the Iris scanner to admit them, a point back in her favor. Maybe he won't be too hard on her.

x

Jennifer Shepherd is seated in the front row of theater-style seats and the screens before them are dark. She's in the second seat in the front row, he takes the first, noting that Sumner has selected a seat in the third row, close enough to be available to her boss, far enough away to be discreet.

"Special Agent Gibbs."

"Director." He matches his poker tone to hers; neither reveals much.

Shepherd nods to the technician seated by the left wall, controls are manipulated and a still photograph appears on the tremendous screen. Gibbs instantly recognizes the crowded main lobby of Reagan Airport. People are arriving and departing, but one black leather jacketed man stands still facing the line of ticket clerks but well off from the boarding crowd; he could be going either way. The image allows for only limited detail and clarity, but Gibbs has no trouble recognizing "Ronald Adolphus."

"The Iceman," Shepherd confirms, using his more familiar nom de guerre.

"Too much to hope that he's leaving?"

Shepherd nods. "Too much."

"What do we know?"

"Too little."

x

Gibbs is surprised by the answer; it's not like the woman to be cryptic, even when withholding information; always a pointless gesture as he eventually finds out what's going on through other methods. However, he decides, cryptic is appropriate when dealing with this man.

The Iceman is an assassin, but a unique one for two reasons. His style is the 'hit and run', in that he kills his target 'en passant', getting close and taking out his victim so nonchalantly his work is rarely perceived for what it is. His target simply dies and the Iceman is gone.

A second distinction is that he never uses his own weapon. His client provides the weapon to be used in the hit. If identified, the weapon traces back to the client, never to Adolphus.

"Who's he working for this time, Jen?"

"Right now, your guess is as good as mine."

"I don't guess."

x

Adolphus had come to NCIS' attention several months ago when he'd been contracted to kill numerous Army Scientists with a collection of exotic 'fantasy weapons'. They'd been working to create what the Army and its eggheads had named the PDC Mark 9, a photon density converter last employed - unsuccessfully - against the USS Millennium. The man who'd commissioned the hits had paid the price for his distinctive collection, buy Adolphus had escaped.

As the climax to that outrage, the US Army revealed that the Iceman is on retainer with them, 'deployed' to do things the Army of the United States would never condone.

The two Generals who'd informed Shepherd, Gibbs and his team of this intelligence - in this room - had also informed them that they weren't here. They'd also said that the Pentagon would regret it if anything happened to Gibbs, his people or anyone in NCIS who dug too deeply into the Iceman's activities.

He's a convenient and unofficial Army resource, which has no connection with him whatsoever.

x

"I've issued a BOLO to all Agents," Shepherd says. "Yours is probably still sitting in your email."

"Probably." He'll look at it later. All that's pertinent for now is "We know who he' working for, or his target."

"No we do not, and before you ask neither does the Army."

"That they'll admit to."

"That they'll admit to. A pity we have no contacts in the Army."

"A pity." The less said aloud, the better for all. "In the meantime, I think I _might _have a potential target."

"Oh?"

"Just got off the phone a few minutes ago with Steven Gerber. He's not happy that the evidence is pointing away from his chief and only suspect…."

xx

In the bullpen, Gibbs' phone rings and rings upon his desk and the four Agents at the surrounding desks look from one to another. It's been less than twenty seconds since Gibbs responded to Cynthia Sumner's call, now this one is making an effort to sound very urgent.

"Answer it, Probie," DiNozzo commands, tired of the incessant signal.

"You answer it," McGee retorts.

"Don't tell me you're afraid to answer a phone."

"_A _phone, no. Gibbs' phone... let's just say I have a strongly developed sense of self-preservation."

"_Oh, for the Goddess'_ _sake_!" Michelle exclaims, hurrying across the bullpen before the ringing can stop. Behind her, DiNozzo and McGee exchange victorious smirks, earning a crinkled nose look from Ziva as the young woman snatches up the phone. "Special Agent Gibbs' line."

/_Where is he_?/ Abby's demand almost sears the wires.

Michelle, not understanding the urgency and not wanting to keep the burden of this fire to herself, presses the speaker button and hangs up the receiver. "He's with the Director in MTAC."

/He _can't_ be with her, _I_ need him!/ Abby's fire draws the strict attention of all the agents. She's frequently enthusiastic, almost as happy under normal circumstance as is Sammy Sky, and not one to burn out circuits and melt wire. /His cell phone is off and I need him here _now_./

He was just with her before Sumner summoned him, they recall, and he'll get to her as soon as he returns, none of which changes the fact that "Abby, we're all bus–"

/AIFIS got a match on several fingerprints from the ladder behind the house where Trovillot was shot! We got the ladder as part of a split between Gibbs and Jeff Carpenter. Don't ask me how we got the best clue; they're swamped and gave us the biggest piece of junk - and it paid off. Apparently our killer _does_ make mistakes./

x

This is enough to bring Tony, Tim and Ziva out to surround the desk, not that they couldn't hear or respond clearly already. "Who is it, Abs?" Tony demands. Bad guys do indeed make mistakes, more than they wish, and putting on gloves _after _erecting the ladder is the mistake du jour.

/You're never going to believe it,/ Abby predicts, obviously determined to make the revelation especially juicy.

"I don't care if I believe it," Tony counters even more sharply. "I want it."

/I mean this was one in a billion. If you'd told me about this a week ago I'd think you were crazy. It's too good to be true./

"_ABBY_!" the four part chorus demands.

/O_kay_,/ she says in her most peevish tone. They're sure she could have dragged it out longer except one of them would have gone down to rip the information from her mouth. /But I really should be telling Gibbs./

"Tell _us_, Abby."

/Okay. Come on down and I'll show you./

The call cuts off before the outraged agents can protest.


	16. Can't Make An Omelet

Chapter Sixteen  
>Can't Make an Omelet<p>

"All right, Abby," Tony's curt tones precede him, Ziva, Michelle and Tim into the Forensics Lab. It's 1740, they've been on duty for nearly 11 hours, have no idea when they'll return home except that it won't be soon and tempers are shortening. The Scientist has yanked them out of Operations, insisting she has to show them the identity of the perpetrator of the murder spree in person. Normally that wouldn't be an unreasonable request, except that this time it's couched in irrational and aggravating evasiveness.

Abby turns from her AIFIS fingerprint computer and her smile shatters. "Where's Gibbs?"

"I _told _you," DiNozzo retorts, "he's up in MTAC with the Director."

"I know, but I dragged you down here to give Gibbs time to catch up, so I could show all of you at once. I never leave Gibbs out of a reveal. Why's he in MTAC?"

"Well, if we were up there one of us could ask him when he comes ou–"

"Tim, _you _go get him. I can't leave him out of this."

"Hold your place, Probie," Tony commands.

McGee can't believe the woman would put him on the spot like this.

Ziva steps up to Abby, drapes her arm across the woman's shoulders and slowly walks her away, her low voice lost to the others.

After seven steps Abby halts, pulls back to see Ziva's face and her incredulous words carry back to the trio. "You _wouldn't_."

Evidently whatever she sees in the Mossad officer's eyes is enough to convince her of the fallacy of that certainty, because she crosses back to the remaining agents and activates her AIFIS monitor.

On it appears a very familiar face.

"You were right, Abby," Tony speaks for them all. "I never _would _have believed it."

xx

The sun has set when Gibbs finds his bullpen deserted and, before using his phone to hunt his missing agents, he makes a brief call to Lt. Col. Hollis Mann, his counterpart in Army CID. It's a short exchange, but then he calls DiNozzo to find out why his entire team would make the tragic mistake of being away from their desks at only 2 hours past quitting time. He's surprised to learn everyone is ensconced with Abby in the Forensics Lab.

x

"Gibbs," Abby calls, put out as he enters, "too late, you missed the big reveal!"

"No I didn't. What've you got?"

"I've _got_, by obtaining fingerprints from somewhat obscure and private HHC records," she declares, pointing to the face displayed upon the AIFIS screen, "the _identity _of our mystery shooter."

The brown haired woman is too familiar: they'd had her in their hands when Lance Corporal Harold Campbell had been collateral damage on the Paul Kensington shooting; a Metro PD case headed by Detective Lieutenant Carpenter.

It had been the same day they'd discovered the faked photos of the 'Women of NCIS'. Had Gibbs not been distracted with _that _case, considering the Kensington / Campbell shooting to be the distraction, he might have detained Nurse Judy Tremont at that time and possibly saved numerous lives.

x

"Any way to link her to the Gerber stabbing?"

"Not by the blood, there was nothing to type but Gerber's."

He decides it's not necessary. When he hears the source of the prints Abby'd found had been the ladder set up to give the shooter access to the roof across the street from Trovillot's house, that's enough for NCIS to talk with the woman.

Once that conversation's over, he'll toss Jeff Carpenter a bone by letting him know the subject of Metro's series of shootings - and stabbings - is in custody.

x

As the agents ascend the stairs to Operations, Gibbs leading the way, Tim signals to and hangs back on the steps with Ziva. Gibbs wants some exercise, if only a moment's, working off an iota of tension on these rapid fire cases and changes in cases. The others, not knowing this, nevertheless decide that arriving by elevator ahead of him would be a very bad idea.

McGee, glancing back down the stairs at the closed lab door behind them and deciding everyone's far enough in front to be out of earshot, quietly asks "What did you tell her to get her to tell us about Tremont?" Normally Abby wouldn't give up the opportunity to make her first report personally to Gibbs.

"I merely reminded her of how the Goth lifestyle features strategic piercings," she tells him quietly, "and assured her that I would provide her with some."

She continues up the stairs, leaving Tim looking after her, no longer sure he wants to know how dangerous his partner is.

xx

"DiNozzo," Gibbs barks as the agents enter the rear of the bullpen and fan out to their respective desks, "find out if Tremont registered a rifle." The first aspect of proving the woman's their suspected shooter is to find out if she owns the weapon. "Palmer, I want warrants for her home and workplace and anywhere else you can think of; find me that rifle. McGee, bank records - if she's playing assassin - or avenging angel - she's getting paid for it."

Ziva is surprised; she hadn't expected Gibbs to refer to what the nurse is doing as 'playing assassin'.

"David, compare the MOs on the hits, both the gunshot and the blades. Is it the same person? When you four are done with those, I want backgrounds on her and her husband."

He picks up his phone receiver and selects an intercom code. He doesn't have a long wait. "Higgins, Gibbs. Remember when you interrogated Nurse Judy Tremont about Janet White's murder over at Virginia Med?"

/Oh, yeah./ From his tone, Gibbs knows it's not one of the Supervisor's favorite memories. It's not his either. Those days were a nightmare as 8 Agents were systematically murdered by an internecine enemy, the worst devastation NCIS had ever suffered. They're times everyone would prefer to forget.

White had been injured by a bomb at Arlington Cemetery, a bomb that'd taken the rest of her team. Critically wounded, she'd been taken to the Virginia Medical Center yet was expected to survive and ultimately recover. There she was murdered, having never seen the face of her killer. Gibbs often wondered whether, if any of the eight murdered agents other than his old partner Martine Joswig, had known who their assassin was, could they endure it?

"Tell me about Tremont."

A pause for consideration. /Personally harmless. Her worst trait is that she was taken in - by an expert./ Neither of them has to elaborate upon the expert or his abilities. /Tightly strung and got tighter the more I leaned on her. She was broken up over White's death, afraid we were going to go for revenge./

"That it?" Gibbs asks after a moment's silence.

/What more do you need? She was a witness, never a suspect. Our orbits haven't intersected since./

"Thanks."

/Don't mention it,/ Higgins says, his tone showing he's wondering why Gibbs _had _mentioned it.

x

Gibbs wonders what could lead a supposedly inoffensive SICU Nurse to become a suspect in one of the most impressive list of murders Gibbs has ever investigated - if she is a suspect. He doesn't question Abby's identification, but one set of fingerprints on a dozen widely disparate murders - executions, rather - is hardly conclusive, particularly when the most common method of execution is a gunshot. Her prints on the ladder... He's looking forward to hearing how Tremont will try to explain those away.

x

Within the hour there are answers, and none of them fit. "Boss," McGee reports, "I accessed Judy Tremont's bank records." He ignores Michelle Palmer's look when she turns to him; she's on the phone again trying for the third time to expedite the warrant for those records - and the wire tap of Steven Gerber's phone.

"What've you got?"

"Well, if she's doing any hits she's doing them cheap. She's got less than $8,000 in the bank and from what I can see that's been steadily declining for months. Her main source of income seems to be weekly payments of $392 from the Department of Labor. Unemployment. Those payments started three weeks after Special Agent White was killed. Before then, she was netting _well _over $600 per."

"Hospital canned her, boss," DiNozzo cuts in. "According to what I got, it was the following evening."

"She wasn't even out of Protective Custody until after that," Gibbs protests, to which DiNozzo's answer is first an ironic shrug.

"They cited poor work performance, but for what I can find her Evaluations 'till then were pretty much consistent on the high side of average. She even received a Commendation four months before being terminated."

"Don't hospital workers belong to a protective association?" Ziva asks.

"A Union. 1199," Tony says, familiar with it from his years with Jeanne.

"Palmer, check it out."

Michelle restrains a sigh; working on warrants is once again a pointless exercise. Normally they're just a CYA afterthought under Gibbs' direction, but this time she'd hoped...

x

Twenty five minutes later records of Local 1199 prove to be more enlightening, if not productive. "Judy Tremont filed a Grievance with the Union the day after she was terminated," Michelle announces. "That would have been the day she got out of Holding - I mean Protective Custody. There's no record of a Hearing with the Medical Center, but after three weeks the case was labeled 'Withdrawn'. Another Grievance was filed two days later, marked 'Withdrawn' three days after. A new one was filed three days after _that_..." She spreads her hands, feeling no need to elaborate.

"Union threw her to the wolves," McGee mutters. The death of a Federal Agent, someone was covering his or her ass.

"Not exactly, Tim," Michelle counters, not hiding her annoyance at what she's found. "On the first day the complaint was marked 'withdrawn', 72 other complaints were withdrawn. On the second date, hers was one of 59. The third date she was one of an elite list of 17."

"Someone was cleaning out unfinished case files," Gibbs interprets.

"Wish we could do that sometimes."

"Not smart, DiNozzo. Does she own a weapon?"

"If so, it's not registered to her _or _her husband," Tim concludes.

This only tells Gibbs that, if there is a weapon, it's not a legal one. He'd actually be surprised if the woman were using a weapon she'd registered. "Let's see them."

x

Ziva loads the data from her computer and leads the agents to assemble before the plasma screen between DiNozzo and McGee's desks. The first image that comes up at the touch of the remote is a Virginia Driver's License showing a black haired Caucasian woman whose expression is as self-conscious as on most Drivers' Licenses. "Judy Tremont, formerly employed as an SICU Nurse at the Virginia Medical Center, presently 28 years old, educated in Virginia, average academic grades ... above average."

She pushes a button and another ID, this one of a heavy, brown bearded man appears beside the woman's. The card is this year's, the address is different. "Wayne Tremont, former Marine PFC, had made it as high as Sergeant before starting a downward spiral. He was Dishonorably Discharged three years ago after incarceration. He was Court Martialed for three counts of Dereliction of Duty, two occasions UA. When he was located the second time by MPs, it was in an establishment of questionable repute in the company of a woman of equally dubious morals."

Gibbs turns to her. "You've been hanging around Chaplain McGee too much."

"I think not."

They let it go.

x

"Which address is right?"

"Both of them," she says. "They have been separated for three months. He has filed for divorce on grounds of, oh, let us call a Jack a Jack, failure to provide Conjugal Services."

"Spade," DiNozzo corrects.

"Who truly _cares_? The woman was accused of culpability in the death of a Federal Agent, thrown to the wolves by her employers and her protectors, could not obtain a job and he cares only that she is not putting it out?"

The agents wonder at her heat, but if there's particular cause for it she doesn't seem inclined to elaborate.

"When I interviewed her," McGee reminds them quickly, referring to the Kensington / Campbell shooting on the day the Internet Faking case began, "she was tense, didn't want to talk to me. I thought it was from having to tell her story four times already; patrol unit, detectives, Lieutenant Carpenter and so on. She'd referred to having been blamed for the murder of Special Agent Janet White–"

"She left her post with a fake 'Doctor' present and he _killed _her," Ziva corrects sharply.

"Well, apparently she remembers it differently. _Either way_," he cuts off her next interruption, "she referred to having rendered assistance at this shooting and then the lengthy sets of interviews as 'no good deed goes unpunished'."

"She also asked us," Ziva cuts in again, "not to contact her at home because her husband's involvement with the military, and now we see he is not _at _home."

"DiNozzo, David, invite her in for another interview. Tell her we need more information on the Kensington / Campbell shooting, but don't get her back up. McGee, take a picture of Tremont to Shangra-La, see if you can get someone to ID her."

x

Even after 1830 the time is wrong for a late-night club, but Gibbs expects the team can get the home addresses of the owner and some of the staff who may presently be absent. He hopes _some _of them are at the club or this is going to be a long trip.

The club should be shut down, but this time he's been overruled; it's not an active crime scene. Damned lawyers.

Rather, having heard about Abby's endeavor at the club last night, he wishes someone had been able to get a message to her to do it. If she wants to act the role of 'Field Agent', it would have been convenient for her to go all the way.

x

"Ready, boss," McGee announces, displaying a color picture of their 'primary person of interest' fresh from his printer.

"Palmer, you're with McGee," Gibbs directs as he heads for the elevator.

Tony and Ziva usually pair in the field, keeping the married agents together, but this time Tony just can't resist getting in one last quip. "You two spend much more time hanging around together," he says as the four gather their supplies, "your 'significant others' are going to start wondering what's going on."

Michelle's reply, in Chinese, bypasses the men but Ziva nearly drops her jacket.

xxx

"Gibbs, you're back!" Abby exclaims when he's barely through the sliding door.

"Why are you so surprised?" Actually, he'd left her very recently, but there's this burst of élan.

"Well, you were so late last time. Don't ever do that to me, Gibbs, you know how I depend upon you."

"Sorry." He doesn't know what he's apologizing for; he'd been busy and he has a team, but Abby can have this effect on people. To walk into her Forensics Lab can sometimes mean you leave the rules that govern the real world behind and enter the Abbyverse, where reason and reality are whatever she says they are. "What do you depend upon me for?"

"You're my link to the outside world, my touchstone to reality."

"I thought that's what these are for," he glances about the rooms full of technology.

"I can't hug them–"

"Good point."

"–though I have tried." She throws her arms about him. "Please never leave me hanging again."

He won't make a promise to her that can't be kept. "What did you find on the ballistics reports?"

x

She releases him, though quite reluctant to do so, turns to the computer on her freestanding workstation, types in rapid commands and images of one bullet after another appears in microscope views on the monitor before her, the views reproduced on the wall-mounted plasma screen. "Everything provided by Metro matches the one that wounded Lance Corporal Harold Campbell. It's a .22 rifle round and the rifling matches up _precisely_. You're definitely looking for the same weapon and, according to the various ME reports in numerous districts _including _Jordan Hampton's – you know, Metro should coordinate better – you're looking for a very good marksman, almost Gibbs class."

"There's a 'Gibbs' class?"

"Well, sure," she turns to him, wide eyed that he couldn't know, "best of the best. Three of the hits were to the medulla oblongata, the area that controls autonomic functions like heartbeat, breathing and so forth; the ultimate kill shot. Blow that away and you're dead, no question. _You'd _nail it every time at a thousand feet, this guy's - or rather girl's because I still have my suspect–"

"Ours too."

"a little less than half, but the misses aren't by very much."

Gibbs is inclined to think she's giving him too much credit, but this time he won't disillusion her. "How much of a miss in Kensington's case?"

"Left side, three inches forward."

"Not a stationary target, lateral movement. How about Trovillot?"

She shrugs. "Ducky can say, but a forward facing shot, most of the back of his head was blown onto the lawn."

x

For now he doesn't believe he needs the exact trajectory. "Killer's targeting that particular point of the brain?"

"Yep, and it's a doozy to hit. It's 2 inches long, 3/4 wide, and not a lot of people know what it's for, fewer know exactly where it is and a darned sight _fewer _could hit it if they did know. But damage it," she snaps her fingers, "you're a gonner."

"Two inch targets from across streets. Not bad. But a Medical person would know to hit the medulla." He's known several head shots where the victim survived; Ducky could certainly enumerate scores of cases.

"Well, sure. So you're figuring it's Tremont?"

"Looks like it." He's as certain as he can be without interrogating her that she'd shot Kensington, then came down to render aid when her bullet hit Lance Corporal Harold Campbell. At least that portion of her story was true, after editing to leave out her guilt. He checks the clock on the way out. "Go home, get some rest."

"No rest for the wicked," she denies, picking up the remote control for her music player. "Sammy and I are going to the 'Sodom and Gomorrah' club. She called earlier, we settled on that instead of 'Taiwan On'."

He stops and turns back. He's happy she's not going to the bondage club but this doesn't sound much better.

"What's Sodom and Gomorrah?"

"Geez, Gibbs, I thought you knew your Bible." Seeing his pained expression, she decides to have mercy. "It's an LGBT Club."

"Ligibit?"

"Come _on_, Silver Fox, get with the times. Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender."

"Don't ask, don't tell." He thinks it over. "So why are _you _going?"

"I'm gonna give them a piece of S."

x

If she said what it sounded like, he doesn't want to know. Still, he has to watch out for his Forensic Scientist. "Where is it?"

"Over on J street, just a mile from where I live, surprisingly enough. I never knew it was there either until Cherry Kane invited Sammy and I."

He doesn't want to know what a cherry cane is; there's enough nonsense in the address. Anyone who's been a Washington resident for any amount of time knows that "There's no J Street."

"Sure there is. It's at the Metro Depot right near platform 9¾."

"Abby." Has she been down in this lab too long, with no one for company but her faux ranked machines?

"Come _on_, Gibbs, 'Harry Potter'? Muggles can't see it so they don't know it's there. Think 'Men in Black'; K - Tommy Lee Jones recruited J - Will Smith so J and K were taken, so when Linda Fiorentino joined the MiB – she looked _great _in black, you know – the next one left was L."

"So Sodom and Gomorrah is on L."

"No, Gibbs, it's on J." She remotes her music on.

xxx

"Can't this place ever have lights on?" Michelle Palmer gripes as she and McGee, using the keys of their gold badges, get past the woman staffing the small outer booth and enter Shangra-La. The black chamber that doubles as bar and dance hall resembles Utopia no more than its misspelled name implies. It's 1946 hours, less than fifteen minutes before opening, but with their shields they leapt past the line of waiting revelers behind the red rope barrier and step into near blackness. Only the single candles on each small table provide a hint of light, and stars would be far more illuminating.

"At least there's no band," McGee says as they cross the room toward the left wall and only center of activity, the bar which has only one man behind it.

"There is that," Michelle admits. "At least I can hear myself think - if I had something worth thinking about."

McGee has no time to explore the source of that self-depreciating remark as they arrive at the long black counter.

"We're closed," the thin, black vested man doesn't even glance up from wiping a set of glasses and stacking them into a pyramid.

Tim wonders how much regard he has for the woman controlling the door if he thinks she'd let any old stranger in before the bar opens. "Special Agents McGee and Palmer, NCIS."

This does get the wiping man to look up, but not at their IDs; he only has eyes for Michelle, yet doesn't look much higher than her chest. "You can palm me any time, pussy-clit."

x

Michelle had come to the bar with an affable opening smile, it freezes upon her lips. McGee's offended for her and, determined to get the interview on track, he draws from his jacket pocket a 3x5 color image of Judy Tremont from her videotaped interview a few months ago, the image being more natural than that from her license. "Do you recognize this woman?"

"Never met you before today," he says, not taking his eyes off Michelle.

"_This_ woman," McGee shakes the paper sharply. "From the other night?"

"What other night?" he asks the petite agent.

"The night of the murder," Tim considers grabbing the man by his open collar and pushing his nose into the picture.

The man leans over the bar, trying to get within inches of Michelle. "Look," he says in ultra-private tones, "why don't you get rid of the wimp, I'll take you in the back office and let you have anything you want."

"_LOOK–_"

"I'm married."

"So am I, pussy. Why should that stop us?"

McGee's done. "That's _ENOU_–"

"Okay."

x

Neither man knows which is more surprised, making their "Okay?" a quite unconscious duet.

"_Sure_," Michelle says with an anticipatory grin, looking the bartender over, at least all she can see above the black wood. "I mean, why should we let something like _rules _stop us from getting what we want?"

"_Yeah_!" he says, heading for the end of the bar and coming around.

McGee wonders what part of the Twilight Zone he'd slipped into when he entered this cave of iniquity. "_Michelle_."

She turns. "Come on, Tim, let a girl have some fun."

"_What_?" Jimmy would burst a dozen cranial blood vessels if he heard this.

Michelle slips her arm about the bartender's waist and turns back to her dumbstruck partner. "Go interview that girl in the booth and," she looks her escort down and up, then looks back to him again, "let us have some privacy."

"Bu–"

Her smile is half-chiding, half-promising. "Be a good boy, Tim, or _you _won't get any."

"Bu–"

She saunters into the corner office, arm still about the man, leaving McGee with his astonishment.

"Bu–"

x

One second after the door closes, while Tim struggles to find a reasonable way to handle this insanity, a strangled cry such as never made by any female throat blasts through the wood. "Michelle?" Tim calls, rips the Sig from his holster, rushes for the black barrier, grips the door and yanks.

Five seconds of dead silence from within as he struggles with the door, then a far more horrendous cry. "MICHELLE!" He aims his Sig at the lock when it snaps sharply, the door opens inward and Michelle steps out.

"Last night was the third consecutive night she's been in," she tells him, looking no worse for the half minute inside. "The woman in the booth wasn't on last night, no point in talking to her." Tim looks past Palmer. The bartender is on the floor, writhing in agony, his hands clutching his crotch.

"_Michelle_!"

"Amazing what you can do when both sides agree to forget the rules."

"What did you _do_?"

She flexes her hand, smiles as she walks past him. "Can't make an omelet without squishing some eggs."


	17. Lamb to the Slaughter

Chapter Seventeen  
>Lamb to the Slaughter<p>

Tony and Ziva park in the northern edge of Georgetown at 2026 and inspect the large apartment house and adjacent, enclosed playground with critical eyes. "I don't like this, it's too big."

"I never imagined those words would ever pass your lips," Ziva quips.

"I don't like a front, back and side entrance for two agents."

"We have only to do our jobs well. We are here to ask her questions, not to take her into custody. She is a witness until she becomes a suspect."

They've already been updated by McGee just minutes ago on the nurse's recent visits to Shangra-La. Judy Tremont is now more a 'Person of Interest' than ever. Gibbs' direction, however, remains unchanged; they're to invite her down as a witness in the Campbell shooting, not apprehend her. At this moment they have little evidence against her, but while she's in Headquarters, McGee and Palmer, pursuant to the Search Warrant, will return here to find that evidence.

DiNozzo decides Ziva's right; they'd been ordered not to put Tremont's back up, just to lead the lamb - possibly a heavily armed lamb - to the slaughter.

x

The elevator they ride to the 7th floor had known better days during the Nixon Administration, and seems to hoist itself hand-over-hand up the cable. When they ultimately reach their destination they're encouraged that the elevator in the middle of the long hall and the staircases at opposite ends seem the only entrance and exit. While Tremont's apartment is roughly mid-building, and therefore closest to the elevator, the agents are confident that, should she try to escape this way, they can beat her to the ground floor using either staircase.

The tunnel-like hallway is the most depressing shade of drab brown Tony's seen in years, with no differentiation between walls, doors, ceiling or floor. "It's like living in a tunnel. No wonder she's shooting people; a month here and I'd go postal too."

"You suspect her of shooting suspects at a Post Office too?"

"Postal, not Pos... Forget it." He raps on door G, as drab a piece of wood as doors F or H. A few moments later, he tries again.

"Who is it?" a voice smothered in suspicion works its way through the barrier.

"Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, Officer David, NCIS."

"What do you want?"

Philosophically and personally, he's asked himself that question many times, but the most frequent answer he comes up with is "We need to ask you some questions."

"Why?"

x

Ziva glances up at him with a small smirk; so far Tremont is the only one asking questions.

"You were a witness to a shooting of a Marine Lance Corporal. Harold Campbell, remember? We have a suspect in that shooting and need to ask if you can identify him."

"I already told your agents I didn't see anybody."

Tony and Ziva exchange a look; this is going to be harder than it needs to be. "You were on the scene for an extended period. It's possible you might have seen the man departing." The silence drags for so long that they can virtually hear her thoughts: send them away or look at the picture of the 'man' and lead them on a wild chase?

The lock clicks off ... and a lock clicks off ... and a lock clicks off ... and a lock clicks– in all they count seven locks, then a metallic scrape and the door opens. Tremont holds a long metal rod in her hand. "Come in, then, I guess." When she closes the door after them she puts the bar into a hole in the floor and into a lock and slides the brace back into the lock.

x

DiNozzo had thought nothing could be drearier than the tunnel outside, but he'd been wrong. 'The landlord must've gotten a bargain on a tractor trailer full of brown paint - from the Nixon administration. I'd be snuffing guys too if I had to live in this cave.'

"I thought the last time I saw NCIS was the last time I'd see NCIS," Tremont says.

Ziva turns from another glance at the formidable set of locks on the steel door, never having broken her attention from the woman and the apartment as a whole, but happy she isn't being called upon to break in here. If it came to that, she'd take the easy way and rappel in through a closed window. "We appreciate what you went through while in protective custody as a wit–"

"It wasn't _protective__custody_," Tremont grates. "That Agent Higgins held me _prisoner_ and I didn't do anything."

The agents remember it differently, but DiNozzo tries a different tack. "Anyway, we appreciate everything you did for Lance Corporal Campbell," he says placatingly. "We'd like to ask you if you'd be willing to come in to look at some pictur–"

"I promised myself I'd never get dragged into NCIS ever again."

"Well," Tony puts on his most charming smile, the one that always works with Jeanne when she's in a snit, "no one's saying anything about dragging you in. We're just asking for your help."

x

Tremont glances to a closed door to their right. "My husband's asleep, I have to wake him up in a half hour, he has to go to work."

DiNozzo considers that even Palmer - either of them - could see through that lie or tell a better one. They already know the estranged husband hasn't lived here in three months. "Well, since it's only half an hour, why not now? There are some things we could ask him too."

"No!" Tremont pulls back, her eyes bright. She's realized her bluff has failed and must backpedal. "No, that is, it's a half hour and he gets ... I mean ... maybe I'll just call. Okay, yeah, I'll get my coat. Just a second..."

She opens the closet door opposite Ziva and from the agent's position she can see the rifle leaning against the side wall an instant before Tremont reaches for the barrel. "TONY - GUN!"

x

Two Sigs and the rifle are out and aimed in half a second, but where the agent's aim can converge on one target, they're several feet apart and Tremont must choose Tony at her left.

In the first moment Tony recognizes the weapon as a .22 Hornet, a chamber loaded single shot, little recoil but very, very deadly. That it contains only one bullet isn't a benefit when it's six feet away and pointed straight at his heart.

x

"Why'd you have to come here?" Tremont demands. "Why'd you have to _interfere_?"

"Just put the weapon down, Ms. Tremont," Tony keeps his tone carefully controlled, tries not to sound like his pounding heart is trying to get out of the way. At this range no one can miss; DiNozzo and Tremont target hearts, Ziva has chosen the woman's head. The fact that Ziva will have several seconds after Tremont fires and must reload is very small comfort indeed.

"NO! You get _out_!" Tremont demands, hatred overwhelming all else.

"We cannot do that," Ziva demurs.

"This is _my _apartment ... and I want you out of here! _Now_!"

"We only wanted to ask you some questions," Tony insists.

"_NO_! No, I'm done answering your questions! I'm not answering any more _questions_! And I'm not going back there ever again!"

"I know how you feel. There're days I don't want to go in either."

"You think this is a game?" Tremont demands so sharply the rifle jerks in her hands and DiNozzo tries to keep his shorts dry.

"No, believe me, when someone holds a rifle on me, it's no game."

"Then _get __out_!"

"I'm sorry, but we can't. You see, that's the same caliber weapon used to shoot Paul Kensington, Raymond Tutolo, Alexander Costello and Thomas Trovillot."

She raises the weapon to her shoulder, the barrel pointed right at his forehead and DiNozzo feels his thumping heart try to leap into his throat.

"It is also," Ziva declares, centering her aim an inch above and between the woman's eyes, "a .22 Hornet single shot rifle. It is not an M16; each bullet must be manually fed into the chamber. It takes an expert over a second and in that time I shall kill you. You prefer head shots, it is the nurse in you to provide a quick, merciful death but I am neither a nurse nor am I merciful."

x

Tears stream down Tremont's cheeks, but while her voice wavers her aim doesn't. "It's not _fair_. I didn't do anything _wrong_!"

"You–"

"I was on duty for four hours without a break - I had to go to the _bathroom_! I couldn't _hold _it any more. That doctor said he'd watch the ward. Three minutes I was gone - three God damned _fucking _minutes! I didn't know he would kill her - _how _could I know he was going to kill her? He was a doctor! I thought he was a doctor. He _said _he was a doctor. But _he _got away with it and _I _got canned."

"He did not get away with it," Ziva assures her, wondering how well the woman can see Tony. Tears stream down her face; she won't release the rifle to wipe them, though DiNozzo holds absolutely still. 'But if I guess wrong then Tony is dead.'

"Then he'll get out on some _plea __bargain_. They always do!"

"He is dead."

Tremont almost glances at her. "Did you–?"

"No, two other agents. But he paid for his crimes."

x

They give her a moment to digest this. Will it make a–?

"Doesn't matter. They blamed _me_! For having to _pee_they blamed me! Fired me. _Blacklisted _me. Couldn't get a job anywhere. My husband walked out on me. It's not fair - I didn't do anything wrong. IT'S NOT FAIR!"

"No it isn't," Tony commiserates when he's sure her convulsive clutch of the weapon doesn't mean he's going to die - yet. But Tremont is getting worse. Red-faced and trembling, she grows more unstable by the second, or reveals the instability that'd been hidden behind a mask of sanity.

"They threw me to the _wolves_. They wanted to save their fucking _reputations_so they ruined ME. I can't pay the rent, can't get a job... I was a good nurse! I was! I WAS!"

"We know," Tony slowly lowers his Sig, a glance to Ziva telling her to do the same.

David's aim doesn't waver.

"They cheated me," Judy Tremont weeps. "They _destroyed _me. No husband, no job, no money, no LIFE!"

"So you turned on those who beat the system," Ziva concludes for her.

"_Bastards_. THEY were guilty! I was _innocent_. _They _were guilty and the law did _nothing_, but they turned me into a pariah, _murdered _me because I had to _pee_!"

"And Carol Gerber. You stabbed her?" They have to have closure.

"Rich _bitch_. Rich _fucking _bitch. She ruined so many lives and I... Well, I couldn't shoot her so I had to go in there. The lights went out, I knew they would, I learned that music and I just ... did it. But why should _you _care?"

"A Navy Ensign was blamed for the murder," Ziva announces. "That is why we were brought in."

"SHIT. _SHIT_!," she screams, her aim moving - but not far enough. "FUCKING _SHIT_!"

"Put down the rifle, Nurse Tremont," Tony urges.

"I'M NOT A NURSE," she shrieks, aiming more intensely. Tony can look up the barrel almost to the bullet. "I'LL NEVER EVER BE A NURSE AGAIN. THEY TOOK IT ALL AWAY FROM ME!"

'Okay, wrong thing to say.' "We can help you. You don't have–"

"NCIS DESTROYED ME. They took my LIFE away!" She reaims the rifle at his forehead, tightens her finger on the trigger and Ziva leaps, slaps the barrel away, grabs, spins and flings the weeping woman toward the far wall. Tremont trips into the wall, bounces and crashes to the floor.

As the agents wrestle her arms behind her back and into handcuffs Tremont shrieks over and over, weeping hysterically. She doesn't fight them, just lays face down upon the floor weeping and screaming.

Tony flips his cell phone open, presses a speed dial combination. "Boss, call off the BOLO," he says over the woman's hysterical shrieks. "Everything's under control."

/Well, yeah, DiNozzo, I can hear that./


	18. Aftermaths

Chapter Eighteen  
>Aftermaths<p>

Leroy Jethro Gibbs sits at his desk in the dark bullpen, the nimbuses of a few lamps scattered throughout the Operations Division provide all the light he needs. It's 2234, later than his normal 2100 departure time, but he'd been waiting for the elevator's bell which finally rings behind him. The shadowy figure that comes around Ziva's cubicle is shorter than she and distinguished by the silhouette of a fedora over long coat. Donald Mallard steps into the lamplight, but his mood is no less dark than his shadowed outline had been.

"Duck."

"I've just come from George Washington hospital," he says without preamble, telling his friend what he already knew.

"How is she?" Considering DiNozzo's and David's reports, he hardly needs to see the man's grim expression.

"While I am not in a position to offer a conclusive evaluation based on a half-hour's conversation, I venture to say Ms. Tremont shall see somewhat more of a hospital than she will a jail cell."

"I've been finishing Campbell's and Cabrera's cases, crossing the i's and dotting the t's."

Ducky understands the point. He feels the same. "And?"

"There are days when this job gives me a lot of satisfaction." Gibbs turns off the three monitor screens, the station growing progressively darker and, reaching for his lamp, looks up at the shadowy figure opposite him. "This isn't one of them."

He switches off the lamp.

xxx

Tim McGee enters his dark apartment at 2314, but a fall of light spills out of his bedroom beyond the computer station to his right. He crosses the room and stops at the door. Siobhan lies on the bed's right side, clothed in red blouse and black skirt and propped up on all four pillows. She's apparently slid down, a coverless black book under her right hand at her side. From her steady soft breathing he knows her to be soundly asleep so he approaches quietly, reaches down and slides the book from under her hand.

He's not surprised to find it's an unjacketed copy of 'Cearbhall's Quest'. This is one of a dozen advance copies that arrived today; the book hits the shelves next week and he sees the jacket set face down next to the lamp on her night table. His own image is positioned upward to her as she sat resting against the headboard. "I'll tease you in the morning," he quietly assures his slumbering wife, "that you were able to find a part of this you could fall asleep over."

He rejackets the book, sets it on the night table and reaches for her red blouse, cautiously opening one button after another, quite appreciating the view gradually offered. He's not sure how he'll completely undress her without–

"You're supposed to ask permission before undressing a woman, sir," she says softly, eyes still closed.

"I did."

She looks up at him, her emerald eyes glinting in the overhead light. "When?"

"January first, around two in the morning, in Saint Mary the Virgin parking lot." That was when he'd asked her to marry him.

"I see." She gives him a slow smile. "And so my agreeing to _that_ gives you the right to ravage me at will?"

He finishes opening her buttons, spreads the red blouse and finds not a lot of a pink bra. "Absolutely."

She raises one knee, the black skirt slipping up her nyloned thigh. "So Cearbhall, victorious in his Quest against the evil Dubhshlaine, now claims the virginal Princess Mairenn as his prize?"

He could answer as Cearbhall but decides, as he bends low to her lips and his hand slips up along her warm leg, past the top of her gartered nylon and further, that she's already chosen the scene and there's no need for his words.

xxx

Tony DiNozzo sits in his living room, staring at his entertainment system, not seeing the dark screen, not feeling his cell phone in his hand. He'd thought for over an over about calling Jeanne; she'd come and listen to his tale of woe, but it's after midnight and he can't bring himself to call her.

Things are so different from when he first met her nearly two years ago, when he'd been the fictional 'Professor Anthony DiNardo'. Their recovery from those days had been hard on each of them, but she'd learned the truth and, against all odds or even reason as he knows women's reason, she'd stayed with him.

He recalls that long ago day when, vengeful, she'd accused him of murdering her father, the infamous Rene 'La Grenouille' Benoit. It had been Trent Kort who'd pulled the trigger, and when that CIA secret had been revealed he'd gone, at McGee's urging, across the Operations Division to intercept her as she was leaving Headquarters, to face her one last time.

'Was any of it real?' she'd asked him, heartbroken.

'All of it,' he'd answered truthfully. 'I love you.'

'Who are you, Tony? Really. Who are you?'

Over a long dinner he'd told her everything. And that night had been the beginning of their real life together.

But sometimes, on dismal nights like this, he wonders what his life would be if he'd said 'no'.

x

A knock on the door almost goes unanswered, he doesn't want to talk to anyone, but its persistence can't be fought, not from this side of the wood.

He walks to the door, still holding the phone, not caring who's come to bother him. Abby would. Ziva might. McGee and Palmer wouldn't. Gibbs wouldn't knock.

He feels very different when he opens the door. "Jeanne..."

She doesn't say a word, just steps in, pushes the door closed behind her and hugs him.

xxx

At 0417 Abby and Sammy walk the dark L Street, Sammy particularly basking in the glow of the full moon blessing the night. Abby glances down to the petite woman; Sammy's long pale blonde hair seems to dance about her white blouse and bounces with her jaunty steps. She'd been skipping before but she'd pulled ahead and Abby had made her stop.

"You are one heck of a trip, girl," she tells her impish friend. "I don't know what I'm going to do with you."

"_Enjoy _me," Sammy exclaims jubilantly, her arms flung wide, reminding Abby of a female Peter Pan. She'd swear Sammy's voice dances almost as much as her feet as she walks Cloud Nine. "I'm treating you to a world Goth never prepared you for."

"Nothing's prepared me for tonight."

"I am _so_broadening your horizons."

"Can't argue with that." If not for her eclectic roommate, Abby's sure she'd never have spent the whole night in a Gay – sorry, an LGBT Club – nor that she'd've had so good a time. It was so different from the usual clubs she parties at, even beyond the fact that tonight the women approached her while the men ignored her. But she fit in so well it didn't feel strange, though at one point, upon seeing a particularly luscious guy, she'd gotten confused.

Sammy's gift to her, the rectangular metal pin on her white Victorian blouse lapel, 'STRAIGHT' on one line, 'but not narrow' below it, saved an awkward moment or two. Rather, the people she met were generally much more open-minded than she'd expected, and her straight - pardon the pun - out stand had made her quite popular indeed.

Abby made more new friends tonight than she can recall doing on any other, even beyond Sammy's introductions of her friends and acquaintances. She'd gone to 'Sodom and Gomorrah' anticipating a period of discomfort and adjustment and it hadn't happened. In fact, she was very disappointed when 0400 finally came and the club had to shut down.

x

"If my horizons were any broader," Abby quips, stifling a laugh, "Gibbs would have a conniption."

Sammy laughs delightedly - Abby would've thought 'gay-ly' but doesn't want to press the pun. "He is _so _going to consider me a horrible influence on you."

"I was supposed to be the bad influence on _you_."

"Give me ti _OW_!"

"What's up?" Abby turns to where Sammy's halted, her hand covering her left eye.

"Red light flashed in my eye, nearly blinded me." She looks down. "Hey, what?"

Abby follows Sammy's pointing finger to the slightly moving dot of red light upon her right breast.

"_SAMMY_!" Abby grabs her arm, yanks hard. A muffled cough from behind her. Red blood erupts from her friend's chest.

x

The impact drives Sammy back, out of Abby's grasp. Pain and astonishment fill her face. Abby's too horrified to scream.

A muffled '_chock_'. Red blood gushes from Sammy's chest. Another gush erupts beside it, then another covers her left breast, staggers her backward.

Blood explodes from Sammy's stomach, doubles the petite woman over. Her long pale blonde hair flies to curtain her face. Red erupts from the center of her skull - knocks her off her feet - she crashes to the cement.

x

Abby whirls. Car twenty feet away - no cover. '_Pock_'! A hammer slams into her left breast. She looks down, another hammer hurts the middle of her chest. Two red splotches spread.

Two more hammer blows hit fast, stagger Abby back, form a horrific triangle. Red spreads wide as her heart gushes.

She looks up, pain so bad she can't feel her heart stop. The red light from the car window flashes up across her eyes.

The bullet slams into her forehead. Her head snaps back. The red splash–

.

.

.

Next Episode: On the Wings of Demons: A furious manhunt. A conspiracy beyond reason. Burning hatred fuels a quest for revenge.


End file.
